Three Chinese students at a California school were sentenced to prison for physically assaulting two fellow Chinese students.

According to a statement from the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office, 20-year-old Yunyao Zhai, considered as the ringleader, was sentenced on Wednesday to spend 13 years in state prison. Her co-defendants, 19-year-old Xinlei Zhang, got six years, and Yuhan Yang, also 19, was sentenced to 10 years. Their sentences are based on how big their roles were in the assault.

Before the sentences were given, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Thomas C. Falls compared the trio's crimes to William Golding's 1954 novel "Lord of the Flies." The book was about British boys who got stranded on an uninhabited island. Isolated from civilization and with no adult supervision, the boys descended into violence, chaos and devastation.

The Crime

Zhai, Zhang and Yang brutally attacked another girl, 18-year-old Yiran "Camellia" Liu, in an ice cream parlor in Rowland Heights, California. Liu was there to settle a disagreement with another teenage girl about an unpaid dinner bill. The girl arrived accompanied with others, overpowering Liu.

The victim was slapped and kicked, burned with lit cigarettes and was forced to kneel and wipe cigarette butts and ice cream smears off the floor.

The group then took Liu's cellphone and car keys and drove her to a nearby park. Once there, she was forced to remove her clothes. While she was naked, the attackers burned her nipples, hip, and chest with cigarettes. Some of the victim's hair was chopped off by the group with scissors. The victim was then forced to eat her hair. According to authorities, the assault lasted for five hours.

When the attack was over, they forced Liu to give three of the girls a ride in her own car. She complied because she was terrified to disobey them.

The statement from the District Attorney's Office said that on Jan. 5, Zhai, Zhang and Yang all pleaded no contest to felony counts of kidnapping and assault. Two days before assaulting Liu, Zhai and Zhang also attacked a 16-year-old girl in Rowland Heights.

'Parachute Kids'

The perpetrators and victims were labeled as "parachute kids," teenagers who are sent to study in the United States by well-off Chinese parents. Their parents remain in their homeland, while the students live with American families.

Zhai, Zhang and Yang all asked for forgiveness for their actions, blaming the lack of supervision that affects plenty of "parachute kids" in the U.S. Zhai said that living with too much freedom in the country affected her negatively and that she became lonely and lost.