The girlfriend of a former University of Illinois graduate student accused of kidnapping and killing a Chinese visiting scholar secretly recorded seven conversations for the FBI over two weeks, including at a campus vigil for the missing woman in June, a court filing revealed.
The motion by attorneys for Brendt Christensen seeking to suppress the recordings marked the first confirmation that a female acquaintance who was seen walking with Christensen in television news footage of the June 29 vigil was, in fact, wearing a wire for the FBI.
Federal prosecutors had previously said that the FBI conducted "audio surveillance" of Christensen at the campus rally three weeks after the disappearance of Yingying Zhang and that Christensen was captured on a recording describing his "ideal victim" as he pointed out people in the crowd.
Other surveillance recordings captured Christensen admitting to having kidnapped Zhang and describing how she fought back as he held her against her will, prosecutors have said.
The defense motion was among a flurry of pretrial filings Monday that add to the timeline surrounding the shocking case currently scheduled for trial next month in federal court in Urbana.
Although Zhang's body has never been found, prosecutors have said she is not believed to be alive. Christensen, 28, of Champaign, is charged with kidnapping resulting in death, which carries the potential of the death penalty on conviction.
Among other revelations in the court papers was that a female U. of I. graduate student tentatively identified Christensen as the man who posed as an undercover cop while trying to lure her into his car on the same day Zhang disappeared.
Shown an array of six photos, she told the FBI agents that Christensen's driver license photo "may have shared the most characteristics with the individual who approached her" but that it was difficult to be sure because the man was wearing sunglasses at the time, according to the defense motion.
Shortly after his arrest on kidnapping charges, Christensen allegedly made incriminating statements to another inmate at the Macon County Jail, the motions revealed.
The defense also asked U.S. District Judge Colin Bruce to move the trial outside of the Central District of Illinois, possibly to Chicago, arguing that the intense publicity drawn by the case has made it impossible for Christensen to get a fair trial.
The defense filing revealed that aside from the recordings made at the rally, the girlfriend also recorded Christensen, who is married, in five other in-person meetings as well as in a telephone call June 23.
Lawyers for Christensen want the federal judge overseeing the case to suppress the recordings, arguing she was illegally pressured or threatened by the FBI to wear the wire.
To bolster that claim, Christensen's attorneys said text messages the woman sent from her phone on the day she agreed to wear the wire show that she was distraught over her situation, including one message where she said she "went into shock" while talking to Christensen.
"I'm just upset," the woman wrote in one message, according to the defense motion. "The FBI is going to take me in again soon ... for more questioning."
According to the defense filing, the messages show "an emotionally unstable individual who appears to lack the mental capacity to knowingly and voluntarily agree to anything, let alone something as serious as cooperating with the FBI in a kidnapping investigation."
Her messages also "raise the question" of whether she was threatened by agents with charges if she did not comply with their demands, according to the motion.
Zhang's sudden disappearance rattled the U. of I. campus and sent shock waves throughout China. Prosecutors allege Zhang, who began her research appointment in April, was on her way to sign a lease at an apartment building the afternoon of June 9 and unsuccessfully tried to flag down a bus before walking to another stop.
Shortly after, federal authorities allege, Christensen approached Zhang in his car and lured her inside. Surveillance video from a nearby parking garage captured the exchange in which Zhang could be seen speaking to the driver for several moments before getting into the front passenger seat.
One of Zhang's professors reported her missing by that evening after several calls and texts went unanswered.
The investigation focused on Christensen after police concluded his Saturn Astra was the car seen in the video. He initially told the FBI he was home all day playing video games on the day Zhang disappeared.
When he was questioned a second time three days later, he changed his story, telling agents he got the date mixed up. He said he was driving on campus, came across an Asian woman looking distressed and offered her a ride because she said she was late to an appointment, according to court records.
Christensen said the woman panicked after he made a wrong turn, and he let her out of his car a few blocks from where they met. Meanwhile, police searched his car and determined that the area where Zhang would have been sitting had been cleaned in a way to conceal evidence, FBI agents alleged in court documents.
Police searched his phone and found visits to a sadomasochism fetish website with discussion threads on kidnapping fantasies, prosecutors have alleged.
The indictment included the special finding that Christensen committed the offense "in an especially heinous, cruel or depraved manner, in that it involved torture or serious physical abuse to the victim" and that the crime occurred after "substantial planning and premeditation."
Christensen also faces two counts of lying to FBI agents who questioned him about Zhang's disappearance.
