The billionaire founder and CEO of the Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com was arrested in Minneapolis last August after an accusation of rape.

Minnesota authorities released Richard Liu Qiangdong without charge the day after the arrest and declined to press charges in December, citing insufficient evidence.

His accuser, 21-year-old Liu Jingyao, revealed her identity for the first time in a civil lawsuit filed against the tech CEO on Tuesday.

She claims Liu plied her with alcohol at a networking dinner, assaulted her in a limousine, and attacked her at her apartment.

In a statement to Business Insider, Richard Liu's lawyers called the lawsuit "meritless" and said they would contest it vigorously.

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A University of Minnesota student who says she was raped by Richard Liu Qiangdong, the billionaire founder and CEO of the Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com, filed a lawsuit against him on Tuesday.

Liu Jingyao filed the civil suit four months after the district attorney in Minneapolis declined to launch criminal proceedings against Liu, citing a lack of evidence.

The lawsuit, which Business Insider has seen, accuses Richard Liu and JD.com of a combined six counts of false imprisonment, civil assault and battery, and sexual assault or battery. It seeks at least $50,000 in damages.

The CEO and student are not related; Liu is a common Chinese surname.

The CEO denies the claims. "We have not yet reviewed the complaint and are not going to comment on pending litigation, but based on the Hennepin County Attorney's declination to charge a case against our client and our belief in his innocence, we feel strongly that this suit is without merit and will vigorously defend against it," Jill Brisbois, Richard Liu's personal lawyer, told Business Insider in a statement.

Peter Walsh, the counsel for JD.com, told Business Insider in a statement that "we will vigorously defend these meritless claims against the company."

The lawsuit claims the student was invited to a networking dinner, given alcohol, and coerced into Liu's limousine. It says that she was driven home by a driver hired by Liu during his stay in Minneapolis, and that Liu raped her in her apartment.

The Minneapolis police arrested Liu over the rape accusation in August and released him the following afternoon. No restrictions were placed on his travel, and he returned to China days later.

Read more: JD.com CEO plunged from 16th richest man in China to 30th after being arrested in the US over a rape accusation

The Hennepin County Attorney's Office announced last December that it would not press criminal charges against Liu, citing "profound evidentiary problems." It said the nature of the evidence meant it was "highly unlikely" that prosecutors could prove any charge beyond a reasonable doubt.

Liu, one of China's richest men, would have faced 30 years in prison if found guilty of first-degree criminal sexual misconduct.

Liu after JD.com's initial-public-offering listing in 2014. Andrew Burton/Getty Images

Liu accused of using his 'superior size and strength to subdue and rape her'

The lawsuit said that in August, Richard Liu pressured Liu Jingyao to drink excessive amounts of alcohol at a networking dinner attended by more than a dozen Chinese executives.

The lawsuit said the student felt forced to drink as the executives toasted her, with JD.com's CEO saying she would "dishonor" him and make him "lose face" if she did not join in.

She was a 21-year-old undergraduate at the University of Minnesota at the time.

Richard Liu had been in Minneapolis for a residency as part of a business-administration program.

The student was invited to the dinner at a Japanese restaurant by another executive on Richard Liu's program whom she met at university jogging sessions. The executive did not mention that Richard Liu specifically asked her to join the dinner.

The University of Minnesota, where Liu Jingyao went to school and where Richard Liu attended a weeklong course. Ken Wolter/Shutterstock

The student alleged in her filing that a Chinese executive bought 32 bottles of wine, which cost a total of $3,600, with a JD.com corporate card at the dinner, then paid for the meal with the same card.

The lawsuit said Richard Liu then took the student into a limousine and "began to grope and physically force himself upon the plaintiff." The suit said he ignored her pleas to stop.

Another woman affiliated with JD.com had been riding in the limousine with them after the dinner, the lawsuit added. The woman followed the pair to Liu Jingyao's apartment building, but Richard Liu told her in Mandarin not to follow them in, the lawsuit said.

According to the lawsuit, when the CEO and the student arrived at her apartment, he took off his clothes and lay on her bed naked. The lawsuit said she repeatedly asked him to stop and never consented to any sexual actions.

The court document added: "Defendant Liu was physically larger in size and significantly stronger than the plaintiff and used his superior size and strength to subdue and rape her."

The above description is similar to a report published by the Minneapolis Star Tribune last November that detailed the allegations. Liu denied those allegations at the time, and his lawyer called the story "one-sided."

Tuesday's lawsuit is the first time the complainant's name has been made public.

A JD.com sign at a Shanghai mall. The company is also implicated in the lawsuit. Reuters

Liu Jingyao added in the lawsuit that she secretly sent a WeChat message to a friend to say she had been sexually assaulted and that the friend called the police.

When officers arrived at the apartment to arrest Liu, the student said she had been raped, and the CEO stared angrily at her and said "What the hell?" in Mandarin.

She also told officers that Richard Liu was wealthy and powerful in China and that she feared for her and her family's safety in future visits to China, the lawsuit said.

The arrest appears on police body-camera footage, the lawsuit said. The footage has not been made public.

The filing names both Liu and JD.com as defendants. The filing said JD.com was "vicariously liable" for Liu's actions because the accusations centered on what was "seemingly" a work function and because two other JD.com employees were said to be present for part of the incident.

Read more: A Chinese tech billionaire has been accused of plying a student with drink and then forcing himself on her during a trip to the US

Richard Liu in Beijing. He has long fostered an image of being hardworking and family-oriented. Reuters

The lawsuit said the incident prompted the student to withdraw from all her classes during the fall 2018 semester and seek professional treatment.

"We are proud of the incredible courage our client has shown revealing her name for all the world to see, so that justice may be done," Florin Roebig, one of the law firms representing Liu Jingyao, said in a Tuesday statement cited by Reuters.

Business Insider has contacted the Hennepin County Attorney's Office for comment on the lawsuit.

A composite image of Richard Liu and his wife, Zhang Zetian. Lintao Zhang/Getty; Pascal Le Segretain/Getty

Liu has long fostered a reputation of being a workaholic and a family man.

"For my parents I want to be a good son, for my wife a good husband, and for my daughter I want to be a good father," Reuters cited him as saying last January.

"I hope that one day when I retire that my workers will all be able to say: 'He was a good guy.'"