
RadiumOne CEO escapes felony charges - downandout
http://www.siliconrepublic.com/business/item/36623-radiumone-ceo-escapes/
======
downandout
It's a little ironic that Brendan Eich had to step down over a $1,000 donation
to a political cause nearly a decade ago, but the Valley so far has no problem
with "G" hitting a woman 117 times in 30 minutes on video (after which he
tried to smother her with a pillow). If he indeed suffers no significant
professional fallout from what he did - and as of this moment there are no
signs that he will - then the Valley is truly a disturbing place with
priorities that are completely out of sync with the rest of humanity.

~~~
swombat
It's not ironic, it's infuriating...

But the best way I've heard it explained is that everyone knows and cares
about Mozilla and Github, and no one knows RadiumOne.

I tweeted John Gruber suggesting he might link to this, and he (rightly, I
guess) pointed out that he had no idea who this guy is. And that will be most
people's reaction, I guess.

~~~
buro9
I wondered whether it was the B2B vs B2C thing.

Mozilla and Github, both have consumers who will take action.

This is a far worse case, he provable beat the hell out of her, but a justice
system screw-up has let him largely off the hook. Yet consumers (who make the
most noise, push the strongest demands on companies, and can affect the bottom
line when they are the customers) are not aware of Radium or able to directly
affect the bottom line.

I remain uncertain (expressed on Twitter) whether hounding existing investors
is the way forward, but certainly pressuring board members (which will include
some but not all existing investors) and customers is probably the way.

Whereas my thoughts on Twitter mobs remain to the negative, this guy beat the
hell out of his girl and clearly has issues with violence. He shouldn't be
running a company, he isn't fit to.

The court got it wrong (from a moral/ethical perspective as the guy did it,
but perhaps right on a technical perspective I'll concede)... and I loathe
mobs, but if the court failed to do their job then I come down on the side of
the mob (even though that doesn't sit well with me).

~~~
rayiner
> The court got it wrong (from a moral/ethical perspective as the guy did it,
> but perhaps right on a technical perspective I'll concede)... and I loathe
> mobs, but if the court failed to do their job then I come down on the side
> of the mob (even though that doesn't sit well with me).

There's a 1983 Michael Douglas movie on point:
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086356](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086356).
It's pretty ham-fisted, but the first thirty minutes are a nice portrayal of a
judge forced to throw out convictions due to 4th amendment violations by the
police. There's a great scene where the prosecutor pleads with the judge to
admit evidence in a murder case despite the 4th amendment violation, and the
judge replies: "look, I'm just doing my job here--I suggest you start doing
yours better."

~~~
buro9
Oh I agree.

It's just tough to accept.

The judge has punished the police and prosecutor for doing their job badly,
rather than punishing the guy for beating up his girlfriend.

------
shiven
Fuck this shit! Anyone who invests in this scummy bastard's company, for
whatever reasons, is an implicit supporter of such heinous behavior.

If you have any way of holding this bastard's feet to the fire, financially or
otherwise, it is your moral prerogative to do so, without question. Shame on
anyone who supports this pathetic slime ass!

If you care about it, put your money where your mouth is and find a way to
publicize this before the IPO and find a way to keep yourself, your friends
and your companies from having anything to benefit his business, now and in
the future.

------
cvbncvbncgbc
_Someone_ has been desperately trying to edit his Wikipedia entry many times,
trying to remove the Domestic violence conviction section.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gurbaksh_Chahal&of...](http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gurbaksh_Chahal&offset=&limit=100&action=history)

~~~
jebus989
_Someone_ == a PR firm:
[http://www.eileenkoch.com/](http://www.eileenkoch.com/) (warning: noisy) but
as the current revision reflects, Wikipedia articles are built with respect to
due weight and neutrality. While it's not ok to hide unflattering info, it's
also not ok to bloat a short encyclopaedic article with court case details
with the intention of highlighting how bad a guy the subject is.

~~~
pekk
While in the real world, Wikipedia articles either hide unflattering info or
act as smears depending mostly on which faction manages to edit-camp that
article more effectively. Regardless of what is "ok"

~~~
jebus989
That's a silly caricature of how the place works, and not something I've
experienced in the 8 years I've had an account there.

------
throwaway_2912
As someone who's interacted with RadiumOne's engineering leadership, I hate to
say I'm only _kind of_ surprised. At a minimum, the attitude and arrogance of
its CEO permeates the rest of the organization. In my experience, this company
gives off creepier vibes than just about any in SF, if not the entire valley.

I would encourage everyone to give them a wide berth.

------
elleferrer
Ironically, Gurbaksh Chahal appeared on an episode of 'Secret Millionaire'
where he gave a heavy check to a single mother of one who used to get beat up
by her ex.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMAKwl1GW-I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMAKwl1GW-I)

117 times in half an hour! That's worse than what Chris Brown did to Rihanna.
And he's planning to raise a $100 million IPO for RadiumOne? Pssh, I wouldn't
invest a dime in a company, RadiumOne for example, whose CEO beats on women.
I'm thinking that there's an unfortunate team over at RadiumOne trying to save
his reputation by flooding social media with his inspirational messages.

I've just lost all respect for you, Gurbaksh. I am now going to waste time out
of my morning to unfriend you from all of my social networks.

------
smoyer
Our criminal justice system is designed to (except apparently at the federal
level) keep it from being used against dissidents, but this is one case where
the rules for evidence collection helped produce the wrong result.

What he did was completely reprehensible and while the courts have ruled, that
doesn't mean that society shouldn't punish this behavior. As someone below
noted, nobody knows who he is, but we can change that ... and I hope that
RadiumOne's customers care enough to find another vendor.

EDIT:

Did anyone else find the line "Security footage from his bedroom" a bit
creepy?

~~~
rayiner
> Our criminal justice system is designed to (except apparently at the federal
> level) keep it from being used against dissidents, but this is one case
> where the rules for evidence collection helped produce the wrong result.

I think you would be surprised at the ratio of dissidents to scumbags that
actually invoke the 4th amendment. This case is the common case, not the
outlier. It's a scumbag who clearly did something bad that's getting off
because the cops obtained evidence in violation of the 4th amendment.

I think this was the right result, because this was a square fourth amendment
violation (search in a home), but you can see why the 4th amendment is so
politically unpopular and constantly under attack. Ordinary people don't
really think or care about the dissidents. They just see guys like this get
off on a "technicality."

~~~
defen
Can you comment on why this was a 4th amendment violation? It seems like the
police were legitimately called to the scene of a crime-in-progress and found
evidence of said crime. If they had found cocaine instead of a video of a
violent attack, would that also have been inadmissible in a court of law?

~~~
rayiner
As a background consideration, keep in mind that we're talking about the
search of a house, which is the absolute heart of the 4th amendment.

Warrantless entry and search of a house is considered per se unreasonable
under the 4th amendment. There are a few narrow exceptions. First, a warrant
is not required when the sole occupant of the house consents.[1] However, in a
situation like this one where the defendant is present, his objection is
enough to render the entry unlawful, even if the other person consents.[2]

Second, even if there is no consent, there are a few narrow exceptions the
police can use. One of those is when "exigent circumstances" require the
police to enter to prevent bodily harm or the destruction of evidence. But
even in such cases, the acceptable scope of a warrantless search is limited by
the circumstances that give rise to the exigency.[3]

So in this case, the girlfriend called the police saying he was threatening to
kill her, which would justify, under the exigent circumstances exception,
their entry onto the property. However, that did not authorize them to conduct
a search of the house for evidence of domestic violence. The scope of their
entry and search should have been limited to the exigent circumstance that
justified the warrentless entry: ensuring her immediate safety. The police
raised "possible destruction of evidence" as a reason for the search, but they
had no reason to believe, until they searched, that there was evidence to
preserve. The exigent circumstances that justified the entry was securing the
safety of the girlfriend. Once they entered, they cannot shift their theory
and say the exigent circumstance is preventing the destruction of evidence.

As for drugs, it depends. One of the other exceptions to the 4th amendment is
that police are entitled to seize evidence in "plain view" during an otherwise
lawful entry.[4] Had there been drugs strewn around the house, they would have
been admissible. However, the video evidence was not in plain view. They had
to go looking for it. If the police have to go looking for it, then that
evidence is not admissible. That is true even when the evidence is drugs.

[1] Fernandez v. California, 571 U.S. __ (2014).

[2] Georgia v. Randolph, 547 U.S. 103 (2006).

[3] Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385 (1978).

[4] Horton v. California, 496 U.S. 128 (1990).

~~~
defen
Very interesting, thanks. Follow up question: if the girlfriend had said
something like "There's a camera in the closet that recorded all this, and
he'll probably erase it when you leave" \- do you think that would have been
sufficient to make it not a fourth amendment violation? The idea being that
they were told about it by the victim, rather than searching for it.

~~~
rayiner
My read of the precedent is that when it comes to the invoking the destruction
of evidence exception, the exigency must be imminent. If the girlfriend had
said there was video tape of the beating, it would take very little time to
get a warrant signed. This happened in San Francisco, and a big city like that
will have magistrate judges on call 24/7\. Meanwhile, if the police were
lawfully on the premises to ensure her safety, they not only could lawfully
detain him while waiting to get a warrant, but had probable cause to arrest
him for domestic violence. My read is that courts favor a short detention like
this over a warrantless search.

I suppose that if she had called and just said: "he's going to delete tapes
showing him beating me" they would have exigent circumstances to enter to
prevent destruction of evidence, even if the circumstances were such that they
didn't otherwise have exigent circumstances to enter to prevent bodily injury.
But that's somewhat contrived.

------
buro9
Trying to find the written court verdict about the dismissal of the video
footage is proving hard... all of the articles cite each other in a big
circular loop.

The original court filing and allegations are in here:
[http://www.scribd.com/doc/219900669/Gurbaksh-
Chahal](http://www.scribd.com/doc/219900669/Gurbaksh-Chahal)

But has anyone got a link to the actual court verdict at the end, or whatever
the deal is?

------
justinv
For those who are interested in some large companies that use RadiumOne. Would
be very interesting to see their stance on this:

[https://twitter.com/PhilippvH/status/459348305991204864](https://twitter.com/PhilippvH/status/459348305991204864)

Porsche, Verizon, United, UMG, & Conde Nast are all mentioned. I'm sure there
are countless others.

------
bruceb
At the risk of evoking the wrath of HN...

It is curious that he was charged with 45 felonies and had a million $ bail
(which is ridiculous) yet in the end he plead guilty to 1 misdemeanor charge?
Which what happens sometimes when prosecutors want to save face. Plenty of
charges are prosecuted with out video so it being ruled inadmissible is a pain
but not some insurmountable roadblock. He might be a horrible person, and I
will condemn him when I know for sure, but we seem to be possibly missing some
details here.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
Linked article said the victim declined to press charges. Possibly the DA felt
it couldn't make a solid case without her cooperation, so they just got him to
plead to the misdemeanors.

~~~
jebus989
Apparently she went further than declining to press charges, the defendant's
lawyer claimed that the victim "'provided photographic proof of an unblemished
complexion to SFPD' and filed an affidavit requesting that the investigation
be terminated" [0].

[0] [http://www.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisco/attorney-for-
internet...](http://www.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisco/attorney-for-internet-
mogul-gurbaksh-chahal-call-domestic-violence-charges-
overblown/Content?oid=2540544)

~~~
spacemanmatt
That is the defense story.

Got salt?

~~~
jebus989
I don't understand your expression but I was just quoting a news source
without any interpretation implied. I can imagine how such a scenario would
hamper the prosecution moreso than someone just not keen on pressing charges.

------
jeff303
It's a little scary how many people on his Facebook page seem to be defending
this shit because "she cheated on him."

------
matthewmacleod
_With no felony conviction to his name, Chahal can remain on the board of
RadiumOne_

I don't know why they'd want him to, though.

------
izzydata
Who puts a security camera in their own bedroom?

~~~
calbear81
A man who thinks his wife is sleeping with another man in their bed?

------
spada
He hit her nearly 4 times every minute for 30 minutes. that's staggering.. i
hope this destroys him.

------
ghostDancer
If you read something like this happening in a third world country you think
is disgusting,but in the USA , i can't find the words.

~~~
azth
Your comment is disgusting.

------
whoismua
Don't favor vigilante justice but if by chance the victim's brother happened
to see this scumbag on the street, I wouldn't waste much sleep over it.

