http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/16570774.htm

It has been nearly six years since a bizarre murder plot tore apart the Hsu family of San Jose. On a February weekend visit home from college in 2001, 18-year-old Patrick Hsu noticed an odd toy robot dog that had been mailed in a box weeks earlier. His father had opened the box, then set the contraption aside when he noticed it needed batteries to function. Later, Patrick Hsu placed batteries in the robot -- triggering a hidden bombing device that killed him. This week, one of the alleged participants in a scheme targeting Hsu's family goes on trial in federal court in San Jose after years of legal sparring. David Lin, a Milpitas engineer accused of shipping the robot dog in the mail, faces life in prison if convicted of killing Hsu. But the central figure in a case that has spawned an episode on ``America's Most Wanted'' will be nowhere near the courtroom. Anthony Chang, a Las Vegas man charged with masterminding the plot as an act of vengeance against his estranged wife, remains a fugitive who is thought to be living in Venezuela and outside the reach of U.S. authorities, court records show. Chang's role will still be front and center in the trial, however. Lin's lawyers make it clear that they will argue Lin had no idea what was in the fatal package and was an unwitting dupe in Chang's plan to harm someone in the family of Wendy Hsu, his estranged wife and Patrick Hsu's sister. Lawyers picked a jury last week and will make their opening statements to the panel today.

``The only issue is, did David Lin know what was in the package or not,'' said Daniel Blank, Lin's lawyer. ``He didn't. They are going to say he did.''

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jane Shoemaker, the lead prosecutor in the case, declined to comment. In court papers, the government says there is ample evidence that Chang told Lin what was in the package and that he followed instructions to mail the robot dog to the Hsu's San Jose home. In one recent document, prosecutors outlined an exchange between Chang and a former girlfriend who is on the government's witness list.

``Chang told his then-girlfriend that the defendant knew there was a bomb in the package and that he had instructed the defendant how to handle the package to avoid leaving fingerprints on it,'' prosecutors wrote.

Patrick Hsu, a freshman at the University of California-Santa Barbara, was away at college when the package was mailed to his home. Prosecutors say that Chang hatched the plot over his rocky relationship with Wendy Hsu, and made threats against her and her family before the fatal incident. Police first linked Lin to the robot bomb when the package was traced to a Milpitas post office. Court papers show they also questioned Chang at various times, and he claimed he didn't send the package but ``may have provided information to others that caused the bombing to occur.'' As the investigation was unfolding, Chang quit his job at the Primadonna Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas and skipped the country, days before he was formally charged. Lin's lawyers say the government botched the case, ignoring evidence that Chang was preparing to leave while they focused on Lin's role in the crime.

``He filed a change of address form, and they still didn't arrest him,'' said Blank, an assistant federal public defender.

Chang apparently has not been hard to find -- defense investigators found him in Venezuela. But Venezuela does not have an extradition treaty with the United States, and government officials declined to comment on the effort to return Chang for prosecution. Chang is a Venezuelan citizen, making it even more difficult to secure his extradition, according to lawyers familiar with the case. Meanwhile, Lin is on the hook for the killing. Until last year, federal prosecutors were pursuing the death penalty against him, but Lin's lawyers persuaded the Bush administration to drop that part of the case. Chen Hsu, Patrick's father, did not respond to an interview request. But he has told the Mercury News in past interviews that his son was popular, an Oak Grove High School graduate whose death rocked the family.

``How could this happen?'' Hsu said days after the incident. ``No one can handle this.''

The trial is expected to take four to six weeks in U.S. District Judge Ronald Whyte's courtroom.