MIAMI _ In a Mar-a-Lago trespassing case, a jury Wednesday acquitted a woman from China who claimed she was innocently sightseeing on President Donald Trump's property two months ago.
But Lu Jing was found guilty of a second misdemeanor charge, resisting a police officer without violence during her arrest on Worth Avenue.
Palm Beach County Judge Mark Eissey scheduled the 56-year-old woman's sentencing for Friday morning. The charge is punishable by up to one year in jail.
The verdict rejected prosecutors' arguments that Lu Jing purposely intruded on the Palm Beach private club in a "calculated" and "planned" manner.
Jing has been in custody since the Dec. 18 incident, because her visa to be in the country legally has expired, officials say. She also goes by the name Jing Lu, her lawyers say.
Assistant State Attorneys Joseph Kadis and Alexandra Dorman didn't offer any theories about the actual purpose of Jing's visit, but they threw water on her story that she was nothing more than a tourist.
The prosecutors contended that Jing ignored a warning to leave Mar-a-Lago's grounds, and entered a second time through a service entrance where she took photos of the walls.
Jing, speaking through a Mandarin interpreter, said she paid $200 for a Chinese guide to drop her off at various locations, starting in Miami. Jing said the language barrier prevented her from understanding a Mar-a-Lago security officer's orders to leave or face "a world of trouble."
The guard, Murray Fulton, testified that he used hand gestures to make his warnings clear to the woman that she wasn't allowed to be there.
Jing also told the jury that she was scared when two Palm Beach Police officers apprehended her, and didn't understand why she was being handcuffed.
"It was a normal reaction," she said, through a translator. "I didn't know why they wanted to arrest me."
