Last week's Wall Street Journal revealed that tech entrepreneur Gurbaksh Chahal — charged with 45 felonies after striking his then-girlfriend 117 times, an assault captured on his SoMa condo's surveillance video — sought to pay former Mayor Willie Brown $1 million to make his domestic violence case "go away." This is doubly disturbing.
First, there was the implication that prosecutors can be bought, which both District Attorney George Gascón and Brown — who was put on a $250,000 retainer but kept only $50,000 — have stridently denied. Second, there's the fact that the felony charges did go away.
Chahal pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors after a judge threw out the video on a technicality — and he's not the only tech millionaire to walk away from a DV case with light punishment.
In 2012, Mason Mayer, whose sister Marissa was then a top executive at Google, was charged with felonies for punching and threatening to kill his then-girlfriend in his SoMa luxury condo. A few months after Marissa Mayer took the CEO role at Yahoo, her brother pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor.
Both men dodged trials and serious punishment, receiving probation for documented assaults on their intimate partners. Both men are wealthy and well-connected (though Mayer's status is entirely reliant on his sister).
But at least Mayer, who settled a lawsuit filed by his victim out of court, appears to have behaved since. In Chahal's case, his probation is at risk after he allegedly assaulted another woman (who he met in Las Vegas during his trial).
He's due back in court on that matter in November.
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