C.R.E.A.M. Taken from ValleyWag, where you can read more on the story:
RadiumOne CEO Gurbaksh “G” Chahal pled guilty to two misdemeanors for domestic violence and battery last week. The ad-tech executive faced 45 felony charges based on security footage from his San Francisco penthouse apartment, which allegedly showed him hitting and kicking his girlfriend 117 times in half an hour.
You wouldn’t know this from recent RadiumOne headlines, however.
His online advertising network plans to raise $100 million from its IPO and just partnered with Condé Nast. Meanwhile Marcom, an international marketing conference that claims the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Netherlands as a partner, sent out a press release touting Chahal as a featured speaker on “dark social.”
These promising career developments occurred well after Chahal’s arrest in August. Business Insider has a copy of the felony complaint. At the time, the prosecution thought the video handed them an “airtight” conviction, but the San Francisco Chronicle implies that the serial entrepreneur, who sold his previous company to Yahoo for $300 million, bought his way out:
But after Chahal posted $1 million bail and hired attorney James Lassart, the case against him unraveled.
First up, the girlfriend refused to cooperate with the investigation or testify, having hired famed criminal attorney and CNN commentator Mark Geragos to represent her. (Do we hear “big-bucks settlement for not talking”? Geragos didn’t return our call, and Lassart’s camp is staying tight-lipped.)
But perhaps the biggest blow came when Judge Brendan Conroy ruled that surveillance video from Chahal’s bedroom – which reportedly captured the 1 1/2-hour attack – had been seized unlawfully by police. The cops claim they took the video without waiting for a warrant because they feared it might get erased, but the judge didn’t buy it.
SFCitizen faults the police and the judge for getting such damning evidence thrown out. Regardless of how Chahal squirmed out of 45 felony convictions, his get out of jail free card looks more like a carte blanche.
