Leather straps, syringes and secret photos of bound women

Grim details emerge as USC grad student describes assaults 'at length' to L.A. police.

- RICHARD WINTON AND HAILEY WANG

SUSPECT Sizhe Weng, 30, who was studying electrical engineering at USC, allegedly sedated women with drugs before assaulting them.

While pursuing his doctorate in electrical engineering at USC, Sizhe Weng maintained ties with female friends, including a fellow graduate student and two women from back home in China.

On outings that started innocently — a trip to San Diego, a ride from the airport, a shared meal — Weng drugged the women, first with powder in their drinks or food and then with syringes and tubing in their anuses, before sexually assaulting them and photographing them, according to a prosecutor's motion.

He tied up two of the women with straps and manipulated their bodies into sexually suggestive poses, the motion said.

After his Aug. 28 arrest, Weng described the assaults on the three victims “at length and in detail” to Los Angeles Police Department detectives, according to the Sept. 2 motion by L.A. County Deputy Dist. Atty. Catherine Mariano, who argued that he should be held without bail.

Investigators overheard Weng saying in his jail cell, which contained recording equipment, that he would return to China if he made bail, the motion said. China has no extradition treaty with the United States.

At Weng’s residence, the motion said, investigators found sexually explicit Polaroid images of the three victims and a medicine bottle with liquid that tested positive for midazolam — typically used for sedation in minor medical procedures — which Weng allegedly injected into the women’s anuses.

The investigators found several pinhole and snake cameras, as well as flash memory cards and electronic devices “believed to contain additional images and/or videos of defendant drugging and sexually assaulting women.” They also found leather straps, syringes, red tubing and dental mouth devices, the motion said.