Restaurant Owner Charged with Burning Store Surveillance Tape

WOBURN, MA – The owner of China Gourmet in Framingham pleaded not guilty last week to a charge that he burned the restaurant's security video to impede a police investigation into a drunk driving incident, according to MetroWest Daily News.

Shi Yun Zhang, 44, of Framingham, was released on personal recognizance in Middlesex Superior Court last Friday after pleading not guilty to a charge of tampering with an object for use in an official proceeding.

Zhang is the owner of the China Gourmet, 1565 Worcester Road, which was recently renamed from Samba West, according to MetroWest Daily News.

The newspaper reports the following:

In 2015, Samba West customers twice left the Rte. 9 eatery and crashed their cars into Southborough Police cruisers,the newspaper reports.

On Aug. 22, 2015, Southborough Police charged a Southborough man with drunken driving after his Porsche SUV rear-ended a police cruiser on Rte. 9. The restaurant received a five-day suspension after the incident, with two days held in abeyance.

On April 30, 2016, an alleged drunk driver drove his car into the rear of a Southborough Police SUV that was stopped at a red light. Authorities said the man appeared to be "extremely intoxicated" and police charged him with driving under the influence of liquor and driving to endanger.

In May 2016, a Southborough detective went to Samba West with a search warrant for video evidence and was told by an employee that the restaurant's video player had been burned in an electrical fire, authorities said.

Authorities believe that it was damaged intentionally.

The restaurant agreed to a 15-day liquor license suspension, as well as retraining of its staff.
Zhang scheduled for a pretrial conference on April 27 .

For more on this story see MetroWest Daily News at:http://framingham.wickedlocal....