A former staff member at an SFU research lab has been granted a conditional discharge and sentenced to one year of probation after pleading guilty to assaulting a female grad student at the facility last year.
Cheng Fu Hsiao, also known as Dennis Hsiao, had originally been charged with assault and sexual assault after the incident at the university’s 4D Labs on March 27, 2020, but the sexual assault charge was stayed at a sentencing hearing in Vancouver provincial court Monday.
According to an agreed statement of facts read out in court, the female grad student had been finishing up work at the lab before access to the facility was scaled back because of COVID-19.
Hsiao – a 37-year-old married father of two daughters aged four and seven – had asked the woman out for drinks several times and questioned her about her boyfriend over the year before the assault, according to the agreed facts.
“That did not make her feel comfortable,” said Crown prosecutor Louise Gauld.
In the week leading up to the assault, the woman said Hsiao had come to her desk “multiple times” to “get close to her,” according to the agreed facts.
Then, at about 5:10 p.m. on May 27, 2020, the pair were alone in the lab when Hsiao approached the woman where she was sitting at her desk and told her she would have to leave soon.
He stood “really close to her” and asked if her boyfriend was with her, according to the statement of facts.
He told her he wished she would come into the lab the following week to keep him company.
“He then touched her hair and said, ‘Your hair is so dirty. You should wash your hair.’ She brushed him off saying, ‘What are you doing?’ Mr. Hsiao then hugged her from the back and attempted to kiss her on her lips saying, ‘Let me have a kiss. I’m too stressed,’ and ended up kissing her on her right cheek,” Gauld said.
Hsiao hugged her a second time and kissed her on the right cheek, and she pushed him away.
“What are you doing? You know you are married,” the woman had said, according to the agreed facts.
Hsiao then pushed her to the wall just outside the room and tried to kiss her again, saying “Let me have a kiss. I’m too stressed.”
The woman then pushed him away and quickly ran upstairs where she encountered two other female grad students and told them what had happened.
One of them escorted her back to the lab so she could pick up her belongings because she was “too afraid of Mr. Hsiao” to return alone, Gauld said.
Two days later, the woman got a cold sore after never having had one before, according to the statement of facts.
Gauld said the assault had had “quite a significant impact” on the woman.
In a joint submission, Gauld and defence lawyer Michael Bloom called for Hsiao to be granted a conditional discharge and one year of probation, meaning Hsiao will not have a criminal record if he abides by the terms of his probation.
Hsiao was also ordered to do 30 hours of community service, write an apology letter and pay his victim $2,200 in reparations for counselling.
Under the terms of his probation, he is banned from contacting the woman and from going to the SFU Burnaby campus.
Hsiao briefly addressed the court.
“I’m very sorry for all my actions. I take full responsibility, and I’ll never be back here,” he said.
Hsiao has no previous criminal record, and Bloom said the incident was “completely out of character.”
B.C. provincial court Judge David St. Pierre said he hoped the matter had been “eye-opening” for Hsiao.
“You’ve got four- and seven-year-old daughters,” St. Pierre said. “When they go off to school, just think about it for a minute. Do you want them to have to experience things like this?”
Hsiao is no longer listed as a staff member on the 4D Labs website, but his LinkedIn profile still shows him as an X-ray specialist at the lab from April 2018 to the present.
The NOW has reached out to SFU for information on the status of Hsiao’s employment and is waiting to hear back.
Follow Cornelia Naylor on Twitter @CorNaylor
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