What Happened to Baby Annie?

THE lives of Li Hangbin and Li Ying were intertwined nearly from the start.

Although unrelated by blood, they shared a common Chinese surname, and as third-grade classmates, they shared the same double desk in their hometown, Changle, in the Fujian province of China.

After the two left school, in 2004, each of their families paid Chinese “snakehead” immigrant smugglers upward of $60,000 to sneak them into the United States through separate but similarly arduous and circuitous journeys, they said.

Once in New York, they both took low-paying jobs, became a couple and moved into a boarding house in Flushing, Queens. In August 2007, they became parents of a baby girl they called Annie.

For almost four years, they have both been inmates on Rikers Island, charged with the shaken baby death of 70-day-old Annie, for which they will be tried — together — in a Queens courtroom, most likely this spring.

According to the Queens district attorney, Richard A. Brown, the father, Li Hangbin, 27, inflicted horrific injuries on Annie on Oct. 22, 2007, and then, along with Ms. Li, 26, neglected to call 911 until after midnight, which might have cost the baby her life.

Five days after Annie was taken to the emergency room, she died. After investigating for nearly five months, the police arrested the couple, who at the time spoke almost no English, and charged them with second-degree manslaughter and endangering the welfare of a child. Mr. Li also faces second-degree murder, and if convicted, could serve 25 years to life. Ms. Li’s charges carry a maximum sentence of 15 years.

Despite the disturbing charges, a group of supporters has sprung up over the past year in the Chinese community in Flushing, arguing that the Lis, far from being the monsters portrayed by the district attorney’s office, are themselves victims, whose poverty, lack of connections and unfamiliarity with the American justice system made them vulnerable targets for prosecutors.

They cite the fact that the couple have no criminal records, and no history of domestic problems.

“The couple has been swallowed up by the system,” said Michael Chu, a Flushing travel agent and local advocate who had never heard of the Lis until a client mentioned the case two years ago.

Mr. Chu’s third-floor travel office, just off Main Street in a neighborhood that teems with Chinese immigrants, has become headquarters for what a banner on the wall proclaims in Chinese as the “Li Ying, Li Hangbin Rescue Committee.”

On the walls, listings of resort bargains and flight deals have been replaced by petitions and clippings from Chinese-language newspapers about the Li case. There is even an elaborate diagram of a family tree that outlines both parents’ family history — including births, deaths and medical records — going back four generations. Mr. Chu said he had gathered “substantial evidence to suggest that there are genetic defects that run in the family line” that might have led to the early deaths of six direct relatives, including three newborns who died at roughly 2 months old.

The family tree was suggested by Mr. Chu’s wife. A local practitioner of Chinese medicine was buying a plane ticket in Mr. Chu’s office last year when he noticed that the diagram suggested that a condition called osteogenesis imperfecta, which can cause weak bones, might run in the family and could have contributed to Annie’s death. Mr. Chu has recruited other clients to help him research medical and legal defense strategies, not to mention raise money to pay for the couple’s defense.

The portraits of the Lis drawn by the two opposing sides could not be more different. Legal authorities say they are abusive parents who callously let their daughter languish near death for hours rather than call 911. Supporters say the Lis are struggling immigrants who loved their child and have gotten caught up in legal machinery that they don’t understand and are ill prepared to confront.

The stark disagreement extends even to what happened to Annie’s body after her death. The Lis say the police at the 109th Precinct station ignored their repeated requests to retake custody of the body. Officials from the Queens district attorney’s office say Annie was never claimed by the Lis from the morgue, despite repeated notices from the authorities. Whichever is true, Annie’s body lingered in the morgue for six months before she was buried, without a funeral, in a small pine box in a mass grave on Hart Island.