In Yongcheng, home to more than 1.2 million people spread across a central city district and a county of surrounding farm fields, some said they suspected Li had been taking advantage of young girls for a far longer time than police acknowledge.

“He got money through corruption, spent it and turned into a deviant,” said Xu, 48, a woman wearing a purple dress with floral prints.

Standing at a jewelry kiosk with a group of friends in a shopping arcade, Xu said that Li had everything he needed.

Xu slapped her palm and then rubbed her fingers together. A woman behind the counter, a 20-year-old named Li, explained the gesture: “Money.”

Xu then put her arm out and flexed a muscle. “Power,” said Li.

At a fast food restaurant down the road – a knockoff McDonald’s packed with customers at midday – a 42-year-old bus driver surnamed Fu voiced similar feelings.

“Not all officials are like him, but this will affect how we see officials in general,” he said at first.

Then, thinking it over, Fu wondered aloud, “Did higher officials not know?”

He gave a troubled look. “I think that he certainly was protected by some people,” said Fu, as men at surrounding tables played cards and smoked cigarettes after lunch.

While Li’s alleged crimes are extreme, he’s not alone.

In the same central Chinese province of Henan where Yongcheng is located, the owner of a spa was sentenced in December to seven years in prison for sheltering prostitution after an uproar over schoolgirls being forced to participate in a sex-for-cash scheme. Officials confirmed the enterprise dragged in six girls. And there might have been far more.

Among the customers, according to allegations repeated by the state press, were unnamed officials and prominent citizens. Five low-level security and government functionaries were convicted for not properly performing inspection duties related to the club; the courts suspended their sentences.

Chinese media reported this month that the clients of a prostitution ring also said to have targeted schoolgirls – many of them younger than 14 – in eastern Zhejiang province included the head of a village committee. About three months earlier in the central province of Shaanxi, a court handed out prison terms to a pair of bureaucrats, a former village party secretary and the head of a highway construction team, for paying to have sex with a girl under the age of 14.

Several people interviewed in Yongcheng said they thought Li targeted dozens of girls, at the least. Some Chinese press reports have speculated that the number could stretch toward 100, a figure publicly denied by a Yongcheng police spokesman.

A state newswire report about Li Xingong quoted a professor and senior administrator at Tsinghua University’s law school in Beijing as saying, “In China, it’s quite easy for an official, with power and money, to assault a girl.”

The striking remark from Li Hong appeared to be posted only on the Xinhua agency’s English Website, out of reach for most Chinese.

Beyond officials’ sway over police and the reluctance of victims to come forward, a hitch in the law itself is on the side of aggressors.

Under Chinese criminal law, having sex with girls under 14 years old in “flagrant” circumstances brings at least 10 years in prison and the possibility of a life sentence or the death penalty. The law defines sleeping with girls that age as rape.

However, a separate article for crimes in which the girls are used as prostitutes puts the minimum sentence down at five years, with a fine, and names neither life in prison nor execution. The distinction has come up during recent years in instances of officials and businessmen paying intermediaries to deliver girls to them. It’s not clear from police statements to what extent Li is accused of randomly carrying out rapes, vs. arranging for third parties to pay or coerce his prey.

A public outcry online about the second statute has yet to result in it being revised.

Spokesmen in the government and Communist Party information offices of Yongcheng – although on paper they’re separate, the staffs are largely the same – had little to say about Li Xingong.

“At this stage, the temperature has come down, there was a lot of talk about this case at first,” said Zhang Hui, director of both the information bureau for the city government and the party’s international communications office in Yongcheng.

Zhang later added: “Yongcheng city’s attitude about this case is that it will make it an ironclad case and severely punish according to the law, and give the public a statement.”

A reporter asked Zhang about the impact of the rapes on the reputation of area leaders. As with most other aspects of the case, he referred back to items posted on Yongcheng’s Website. None of which directly addressed the questions.