Skip to main content
Press Release

Chinese National Sentenced to Prison for Entering the Restricted Grounds at Mar-a-Lago and Lying to U.S. Secret Service Agents

For Immediate Release
U.S. Attorney's Office, Southern District of Florida

Ariana Fajardo Orshan, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida; Brian Swain, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Secret Service’s (USSS) Miami Field Office; and George L. Piro, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Miami Field Office announced that Yujing Zhang, 33, a Chinese national, was sentenced today to prison after having been previously convicted by a South Florida federal jury of unlawful entry of restricted buildings or grounds and making false statements to U.S. Secret Service agents.

Zhang was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Roy K. Altman, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida to a total of eight months in prison, to be followed by two years of supervised release (Case No. 19CR80056). 

According to the trial record, Zhang fraudulently gained entry onto the restricted grounds at the Mar-a-Lago Club where the U.S. President and other persons protected by the U.S. Secret Service were temporarily visiting.  U.S. Secret Service agents detained Zhang at the main reception area due to her suspicious actions. Zhang was then escorted off the property for further questioning. During questioning, Zhang repeatedly misrepresented to U.S. Secret Service agents that she was at the Mar-a-Lago Club to attend a “United Nations Friendship Event.”

U.S. Attorney Fajardo Orshan commended the investigative efforts of the USSS’s Miami Field Office and the FBI’s Miami Field Office in this matter.  The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Rolando Garcia and Michael Sherwin.

Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the District Court for the Southern District of Florida at www.flsd.uscourts.gov or on http://pacer.flsd.uscourts.gov.

Updated November 26, 2019