Asian student sentenced for orchestrating anti-Asian hoax at Montana State

A Chinese American student who previously served as president of Montana State University’s Chinese Culture Club was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison in December for cyberstalking after fabricating racist threats.

Catch up: Rex Wu Jr. pleaded guilty last July after admitting to FBI agents in February 2025 that he sent harassing emails to fellow student Alexandra Lin. From February 2023, he sent threatening messages from accounts designed to implicate Turning Point USA and students Daria Danley and Dylan Dean. One email sent in June 2023 read, “Faggots want to groom white children we wont stand for this we will turn all asains [sic] into submissive faggots.”

Wu and Lin, the victim, then allegedly used these fabricated threats to advance their political ambitions. Lin cited them as evidence of racial hatred in her student government campaign, and both spoke before the Montana Board of Regents. Lin also distributed “about 5,000” flyers that triggered a Department of Education investigation into the university. Following his guilty plea, Wu was sentenced on Dec. 17 to 18 months plus three years supervised release.

What the parties are saying: In Wu’s sentencing memorandum, his attorney argued that “being in college during COVID as a Chinese American is something few will experience,” claiming Wu “engaged in a wrong to try and correct a wrong” after learning about racial discrimination. Meanwhile, Danley and Dean filed a defamation lawsuit against Wu, alleging that he and Lin “weaponized false racism accusations” for political gain. The complaint details how Lin had previously accused Danley of placing “a noose in her closet” in 2021, though university investigators found no noose, before Wu impersonated Danley in threatening emails to Lin.

Dean, on the other hand, lost his Nexus, Global Entry and TSA PreCheck accounts after Lin obtained a restraining order against him, which forced him to delay his graduation. In response to the suit, Lin, who is not part of it as the statute of limitations had expired on her alleged conduct, told the Daily Montanan last summer, “It’s insulting to the victims of stalking and harassment.”

Beyond the case: Wu’s hoax weaponized legitimate anti-Asian racism concerns during a period of heightened anti-Asian hate, potentially undermining credible discrimination reports. The case differs from Berklee College’s Xiaolei Wu, who was convicted for threatening a democracy activist and reporting them to Chinese government officials. Still, both cases reveal campus safety complexities where genuine threats, including those from hate groups or transnational repression such as alleged harassment of Harvard protesters by Chinese students, risk being overshadowed by fabrications that erode trust in marginalized students’ testimonies.

The incident underscores the painful reality that fabricated hate crimes do not just harm falsely accused individuals. Additionally, they provide ammunition to those who dismiss legitimate discrimination claims, making it harder for Asian Americans experiencing real harassment to be believed. Wu’s actions exploited the very community he claimed to protect, damaging the credibility of anti-racism advocacy precisely when Asian Americans face documented increases in hate incidents nationwide.