Lu, a 33-year-old father from Shandong, eastern China, decided to follow his wife about in March 2021 after seeing that she was taking an abnormally lengthy time getting ready to accompany their daughter to her private instructor.
According to reports, Lu began to suspect his wife of cheating when she entered a nearby hotel, and his suspicions were validated when he barged into her room and saw her wearing scant underwear next to a nude male.
After kicking his wife and beating the other guy identified as Liu, in a fit of wrath, Lu finally agreed to Liu's offer of 25,000 yuan ($3,300) in three internet payments as compensation for having an affair with his wife. However, Lu was taken aback when he saw that Liu had filed a complaint against him accusing him of extortion.
Lu remains convinced that his ex-wife was the mastermind behind Liu’s complaint, seeking an advantage in their contentious custody battle over their young daughter. In November 2021, a District Court sentenced Lu to six months in prison for blackmailing his wife's lover and coercing him into paying financial compensation.
The 33-year-old man appealed the decision, but in March 2022, the Zibo Intermediate People’s Court upheld the original ruling. Lu made another attempt to challenge the verdict, yet the intermediate court once again denied his request in December 2022. As a final recourse, Lu escalated the matter to the Shandong Provincial High Court, which determined that “the original verdict did not verify certain facts, and some evidence was conflicting,” ordering the Zibo Intermediate Court to re-examine the case.
In a rehearing of the case earlier this year, the court cleared Lu, finding that he had engaged in negotiations with Liu rather than pressuring him to give him the 25,000 yuan. Furthermore, the husband's actions were permissible since the judge determined that Liu's activities violated moral norms, good customs, and public order.