One Year in Jail For Abusive Silicon Valley CEO (theguardian.com)

He grew up in San Jose, and at the age of 25 sold his second online advertising company to Yahoo for $300 million just nine years ago. Friday Gurbaksh Chahal was sentenced to one year in jail for violating his probation on 47 felony charges from 2013, according to an article in The Guardian submitted by an anonymous Slashdot reader: Police officials said that a 30-minute security camera video they obtained showed the entrepreneur hitting and kicking his then girlfriend 117 times and attempting to suffocate her inside his $7 million San Francisco penthouse. Chahal's lawyers, however, claimed that police had illegally seized the video, and a judge ruled that the footage was inadmissible despite prosecutors' argument that officers didn't have time to secure a warrant out of fear that the tech executive would erase the footage.

Without the video, most of the charges were dropped, and Chahal, 34, pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor battery charges of domestic violence... In Silicon Valley, critics have argued that Chahal's case and the lack of serious consequences he faced highlight the way in which privileged and wealthy businessmen can get away with serious misconduct.. On September 17, 2014, prosecutors say he attacked another woman in his home, leading to another arrest.
Friday Chahal was released on bail while his lawyer appeals the one-year jail sentence for violating his probation.

Comments

And that is why you follow the law.

[Marful]

Chahal's lawyers, however, claimed that police had illegally seized the video, and a judge ruled that the footage was inadmissible despite prosecutors' argument that officers didn't have time to secure a warrant out of fear that the tech executive would erase the footage.

A warrant is a phone call away; arresting the guy and then calling in a warrant to search for video evidence when seeing cctv isn't that hard nor time consuming.

All it takes is one Judge who follows the law to shut down crooked cops and now a violent offender is getting away with minimal sentencing.

Good job, cops.

Re:And that is why you follow the law.

[sjames]

Not if he is under arrest.

The cops took the lazy way and now a scumbag gets away with his crimes again.

Re:And that is why you follow the law.

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you representing yourself as a seasoned law enforcement officer currently a member of the San Francisco (or any) police department? I think not. Please state the verifiable sources for your claims of instant-warrants that only require speed-dial and a printer mounted in a squad car.

Speaking as someone that WAS arrested in my home he's mostly correct. I refused a search and a police officer just sat with me while they contacted a judge and got a warrant. Took about an hour. We watched Hell's Kitchen. And this was drug related, not violent, so it wasn't exactly urgent.It did in fact happen via a phone and a printer, though that printer was at the station and they just drove it over.

Re:And that is why you follow the law.

[tlhIngan]

A warrant is a phone call away; arresting the guy and then calling in a warrant to search for video evidence when seeing cctv isn't that hard nor time consuming.

All it takes is one Judge who follows the law to shut down crooked cops and now a violent offender is getting away with minimal sentencing.

Actually, to arrest him, you need probable cause. Otherwise you run the risk that the arrest was not done out of probable cause and because of that, the warrant was therefore invalid since the arrest was invalid.

Now, it is actually legal to seize evidence without a warrant, providing you can prove there is a time-sensitive nature to it.

In this case, the police have information that the surveillance footage contains important information to arrest the guy. But without seeing that footage, they technically can't arrest him. So in the meantime, while we ponder how the police are going to get evidence to arrest the guy, but they can't arrest him now (not enough evidence) the guy is free to do whatever, including destroy evidence.

Judges generally look down at warrantless evidence, and they usually convene a subtrial to figure out if the evidence should be thrown out or not.They look to see if exigent circumstances exist to allow the evidence to be used without a prior warrant - i.e., is it possible and likely the evidence would've been destroyed during the time to get a warrant. There's a lot of case law and interpretation behind it - if it was a surveillance system belonging to the building, for example, then it would've been tossed out (it is unlikely the building manager would erase the evidence, and most likely, if you ask nicely, they'll turn it over without questioning).

Oh, and there are times when it is LEGAL for law enforcement to enter your home without a warrant, probable cause or anything else (called "hot pursuit"). In fact, if they came in (during those circumstances) and you're openly doing drugs inside your house, they can arrest you for that, even though in a normal situation, that would be highly illegitimate! (No, most of the time, the cops are not allowed to enter a private residence without being invited or if they have a warrant, except in the narrow case.of hot pursuit).

http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=2...

Re:What is Justice

[ArmoredDragon]

I fail to see how videotaped 100% clear proof of violent crime can be ignored because the police break a rule when obtaining it.

Because if you let it go in this case then you have to let it go in all cases, and if you let it go in all cases then the police are free to break into your home, car, office, etc, hack into your computer, read your mail, record your phone calls, use stingray type devices, and anything else privacy invading just any time they want just to find shit to send you to jail for.

But what's that you say? Who cares about privacy when lives are on the line? Well the thing with that is if police can just do whatever they want to obtain evidence to throw you in jail, then they can practically throw anybody they want in jail because EVERYBODY does things that are illegal, and you bet your ass that politicians would start using this to silence their opposition until we end up with a China style government.

What a terrible legal system

[CanadianMacFan]

I'm sorry but the only reason he wasn't convicted was because the tape wasn't admissible? If some ass hits and kicks his girlfriend 117 times I'm calling in the forensics team because there's going to be the girlfriends blood in the apartment and on his clothes. They will find her blood which will corroborate her statement. Then it doesn't matter if he deleted the video. Besides from the sounds of it he doesn't really sound smart enough to securely delete so that a digital forensics team couldn't retrieve it.

But if all you are going into your trial with is a tape that the police questionably obtained (the lawyer should have seen this coming) then what is your police department and prosecutors office doing with their time because it certainly isn't preparing for cases.

Re:What a terrible legal system

[phantomfive]

Yeah, it's corrupt. The whole city of San Francisco is as corrupt as the cesspools on market street. Former Mayor Willie Brown was paid to cover this problem up. Ed Lee (the current mayor) is extremely unpopular among the citizens, got appointed to that office initially. The state senator from the area was convicted of gun running! Notably he favored gun control laws, I guess he wanted to get rid of the competition. Another guy was demanding "protection" money.

That's just the surface, the ones who've been caught. I don't know how deep it goes, but it definitely extends into the police department.

Re:What is Justice

[ShanghaiBill]

I fail to see how videotaped 100% clear proof of violent crime can be ignored because the police break a rule when obtaining it.

Because police that are willing to "break rules" are also willing to falsify evidence and lie under oath.

Re:Curious, he stopped being a PoC

[ChrisMaple]

Don't use stupid abbreviations. PoC could easily mean Piece of Crap.

Re:SJW

[jcr]

This isn't an SJW story, This is a "douchebag gets away with multiple felonies" story.

-jcr

Re: SJW

[epyT-R]

That way leads to police states. Due process is there for a reason. It prevents witch hunts. If you want to be mad at someone, blame the cops for fucking up procedure.

What a Piece Of Shit. What A Crap System.

[Anonymous Coward]

2013 - PoS assaults girlfriend. Lawyers work magic and get video evidence barred. PoS s convicted of lesser crime. PoS gets probation. Grrr. OK.

2014 - PoS assaults another woman, violating probation. Case drags on until 2016(!).

2016 - PoS finally gets sentenced to 1 year in jail. Instead of going to jail, PoS is released on bail pending appeal. Grrr. This is ridiculous.

That's three years, two violent assaults, two convictions and this fucker has still not been jailed. WTF?