Bay Area man sentenced for stealing rare Chinese manuscripts from UCLA library, returning fakes

A man who admitted to stealing rare historical Chinese manuscripts from the UCLA library system and replacing them with fake documents was sentenced by the U.S. Department of Justice on Wednesday. 

Jeffrey Ying, a 39-year-old resident of Fremont, in the San Francisco Bay Area, pleaded guilty in October 2025 to one felony count of theft of a major artwork after he stole $216,000 worth of books and manuscripts from the UCLA library between December 2024 and July 2025. 

While it appeared that Ying was initially sentenced to one year and a day in federal prison, an amended release from the DOJ's Office said that the correct sentence was time served and one year of home confinement, three years of supervised release and no fine. Restitution is still to be determined at a later date. 

After renting the works, prosecutors said that Ying would return a "dummy manuscript" instead of the authentic one, according to a news release from the DOJ's Office. 

"He typically then traveled to and from China within several days of the thefts," the release said. 

Prosecutors said that Ying used several aliases, including "Jason Wang," "Alan Fujimori" and "Austin Chen," when checking into the UCLA East Asian Library. 

UCLA library staff noticed that the manuscripts were missing and began to investigate the disappearances. They determined that the books were last viewed by a visitor who they later identified as Ying's alias, Alan Fujimori.

"Due to the rarity and value of the books, they are not in regular circulation in the library and must be reserved and checked out," the release said. 

Upon searching Ying's hotel room in Brentwood, they found blank manuscripts and paperwork that were of a similar style and manner to the books that he had checked out from the library. Investigators also found pre-made labels that he used to create the dummy books to return to UCLA, a fake California identification card with the name Austen Chen and two library cards with other aliases. 

Prosecutors said that one of the items stolen in December 2024 was a 17th-century manuscript from China's Qing Dynasty.