Jury selection begins in case of murdered Queens lawyer — Queens Daily Eagle

By Noah Powelson

Jury selection began this week in the trial of a woman accused of killing a Queens immigration lawyer and pro-democracy activist whose death has shaken the borough’s legal community.

Prosecutors with the Queens District Attorney’s Office and Xiaoning Zhang’s lawyers began selecting jurors on Wednesday who will decide Zhang’s fate.

Zhang’s trial before Queens Supreme Court Acting Administrative Judge Kenneth Holder is expected to begin in the coming days.

Zhang, 27, allegedly killed attorney Jim Li at his Flushing law firm in March 2022.

According to prosecutors, Zhang, a former client of Li’s who was providing pro bono services, became enraged when the lawyer stopped working on her case, then allegedly returned to his office the following week with several knives and repeatedly stabbed Li when they were alone.

According to a report in The New York Times, Li’s lawyers and friends who witnessed the attack said Zhang was shaken and that she physically attacked the 66-year-old lawyer a week before his death.

Zhang, a Chinese citizen, was reportedly in the U.S. on an F-1 student visa, preparing to attend school in California. In 2022, the Daily News reported that Zhang had asked Li for legal assistance in seeking asylum.

For some reason, Li, a prominent Queens immigration lawyer, dismissed the case.

Li, born Li Jinjin, opened his law firm in New York in 1998, shortly after arriving in the U.S. as an asylum seeker. The lawyer was imprisoned in China for several years for his role in the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests.

After starting his practice in Queens, Li focused primarily on immigration law, helping numerous Chinese immigrants trying to settle in the U.S. Many of them came to the country as students.

In addition to his legal work, Li continued his democracy activism in China in his new home.

Li was co-founder and second chairman of the Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang Memorial Foundation in Flushing.

The Memorial Foundation is a nonprofit organization named after former Chinese Communist Party officials and reform advocates who were removed from power. Memorial Foundation members have been outspoken critics of the Chinese government and advocates for Chinese economic reform since its founding in 2005.

The Foundation suffered large losses in 2022, and not only due to the death of one of the co-founders.

Shortly after Li’s death, one of the group’s founders, Shujun Wang, was arrested on charges of spying for the Chinese government.

Wang, a Chinese professor, was convicted in August of conspiracy and acting as an agent of a foreign government without notifying the prosecutor general, charges he vehemently denied throughout the trial.

Prosecutors accused Wang of using his position at the Memorial Foundation and his influence in the Chinese community to report on dissidents from the People’s Republic of China and its Ministry of State Security. The dissidents include pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, Taiwanese independence supporters, and Uighur and Tibetan activists.

Li was killed just two days before Wang’s arrest in 2022.

Even though the two events occurred almost simultaneously, neither the Queens District Attorney’s Office nor the federal prosecutors who prosecuted Wang alleged any connection between Li’s death, his work at the Memorial Foundation or Wang’s conviction.

Li’s death has unsettled the Queens legal community, which witnessed the death of another colleague, 65-year-old Charles Zolot, who was stabbed to death by a former client less than a year earlier.

Speaking to the Eagle in 2022 after Li’s death, then-Queens County Bar Association President Frank Bruno said he was “stunned” to learn of Li’s killing.

“We mourn Mr. Li and are thinking of his family and friends,” Bruno said at the time. “The Queens County Bar Association advocates for all lawyers in our community to provide support when needed and to take a leadership role when possible.”