Academia, Criminal law

Berkeley Prosecutors Cut Probation Deal for Scientist Who Tried to Kill Colleague

I have been a criminal defense attorney for my entire career, but there is a case out of Berkeley, California that is a real head scratcher. David Xu was the chief metallurgist for a company called Berkeley Engineering and Research (BEAR) and was caught on tape trying to poison a colleague. His actions are blamed for not only causing harm to Rong Yuan, but her parents. After spending only 10 days in jail, Alameda County prosecutors and a judge signed off on a probation deal in the case.

Xu was arrested back in 2019 after Yuan became suspicious that her illness (which she thought might be cancer) might be related to a water bottle that she used at work. When her parents used the bottle to cook, they also became ill. She set up a spy camera at work and caught David Xu tampering with the water bottle. It was tested and found to contain “extraordinarily high levels of cadmium, a poisonous heavy metal.”

That seems a pretty strong case for two counts of poisoning and an attempted murder prosecution.

Yet, the prosecutors dropped the attempted murder charge and accepted a plea on the two poisoning counts. Then a probation officer recommended no jail time. The officer wrote that

“The defendant is highly educated and living at home with his wife and children. He is employed and earning a stable income. Although this matter represents the first and only offense, it was serious in nature and could have resulted in death or serious illness of the victims…. It is the hopes of this deputy that the defendant will take advantage of this second chance and can satisfactorily complete this probation.”

Even on the two poisoning counts, one would expect some jail time. This man hurt three people and could have killed a colleague.

Yet, Alameda County DA Pamela Price signed off on letting Xu spend less than two weeks in jail for his crimes.

It is not clear what it takes to get actual jail time in Alameda County under Price. The San Francisco Chronicle was unable to get sentencing data from her office and Price is the subject of a recall campaign over her lax enforcement record.

111 thoughts on “Berkeley Prosecutors Cut Probation Deal for Scientist Who Tried to Kill Colleague”

  1. The World is FOOBAR/SNAFU to the MAX. It has always been this way and it always will be this way.

    The law is part of the World so the law is Foobar/Snafu to the MAX.

    The law attempts to govern human behaviour by words but words are imprecise, they have multiple meanings and when an individual uses a word he has a subset of meanings in mind and if another person reads his words but associates a different and non overlapping subset of meanings then complete communication failure. A law written at a certain time has certain meanings because the words used have those meanings but in a 100 years do the words have the same meanings and if they don’t can persons then know what the writers of the law actually meant. In some cases as for example religious texts is it even possible for religious scholars today to know what the ancient writers reallymeant. The word “virgin” in the phrase “the virgin Mary” for example. Today “virgin” means a celibate young woman but 2000 years ago it may have just meant a young woman but Xtianity has the myth a father in the form of a ghost with holes in it raping a virgin to produce his son who is in fact himself. Definitely FOOBAR SNAFU to the Max.

    In the Rumpole of the Baily stories the things the judges most fear is setting a precedent because they know how much damage that can cause. A precedent set applies in future cases. Let us say a new case comes up which is the first ever to involve principles A & B but these are incompatible and one must override and in that case it is obvious that A is more important. Sometime later another case arises where principles A and B are relevant but “common sense” logic of that particular case would say B should override, but it can’t because there is a precedent. Only by going to a higher level court can the precedent perhaps be overridden. I do not envy lawyers because they are constantly trying to balance conflicting principles, what is obvious to one is crazy to another.

    I join others in this comment thread in thinking this sentence is crazily lenient but it is completely consistent with the foundation principle of the world which is Foobar-Snafu to The Max.

  2. “IF YOU CAN KEEP IT”

    “SECURE THE BLESSINGS OF LIBERTY TO OURSELVES AND OUR POSTERITY”
    __________________________________________________________________________________

    Excuse me.

    The American Founders and Framers would like to say a few pertinent, and definitive words on the subject, reiterated from the year of the adoption of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

    Gentlemen, go ahead.
    _________________________

    Naturalization Acts of 1790, 1795, 1798, and 1802

    United States Congress, “An act to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization,” March 26, 1790

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That any Alien being a free white person, who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for the term of two years, may be admitted to become a citizen thereof…

  3. As a matter of Justice, Xu should be put down. As a matter of law, murder is a difficult charge due to the amount of cadmium required to cause death.

    1. We do not know why he did it. How do you know he did not have a good reason for doing what he did? Truth is the missing element and without truth there can be no judgments made. Our society hates the truth. Are you willing to judge another, putting a person down in your words without knowing all the facts? Are you schmuck?

      1. Robert Browning:
        Rob – Could you please explain to all as to what a “good” reason would be for poisoning one’s co-workers? I don’t disagree “being put down “ is a poor choice of words for prosecuted to the full extent of the law for the crimes committed. The perpetrator plead guilty so for him to walk is a miscarriage of justice.

        1. They won’t tell us they never do. The people have the right to know. I want to know why. Any speculations on my part will not yield the truth.

        2. Rob-
          The correct answer is: There is NEVER a good reason to poison your coworkers. There is nothing that a coworker could do that would justify initiating a premeditated murder. If there is a wrong practiced against you, it should be handled legally and lawfully. If it’s bad enough or unlawful then you report or hire counsel. You NEVER poison their water bottle, and if you do, you’re now a criminal and should be jailed for the severity of the crime.

          1. There is a reason for everything, including immoral conduct. Embrace the darkness if you wish, I will seek out the light.

      2. There is no good reason to EVER secretly put in another persons water ANYTHING without their knowledge.
        Not Cadmium, Not Arsenic, not sugar.

        2. But there is a reason good or not, and what is that reason and why don’t the people have a right to know? Or do they have a right and the truth is being concealed from them for what purpose?

  4. For over five years George Soros has been laying siege to the U.S. justice system. In the past year, the Capital Research Center has exposed how Soros has used a vast network of political action committees (PACs) to spend over $29 million to elect two dozen radical left-wing district attorneys (DAs), and that these prosecutors are now in charge of protecting over 37 million Americans, or 11 percent of the entire U.S. population.

    But the process of electing pet DAs has not been an easy one though. Many Soros-backed candidates have been rebuffed by more moderate and qualified opponents.

    Alameda County

    Now, one of Soros’s would-be DAs is gearing up to take another swing.

    In 2018, Pamela Price ran for District Attorney in Alameda County, California, and was defeated by the incumbent, Nancy O’Malley. During her campaign Price received support from the Soros-funded California Justice and Public Safety PAC, to which Soros has contributed $6.1 million since 2018. California campaign finance disclosures show that the PAC spent a total of $699,647 in support of Price. Meanwhile, Price’s PAC raised just $326,798 during the entire 2018 cycle, meaning Soros spent over double the funds Price was able to raise organically, making Soros the largest spender on the election by far, even though he does not live in Alameda County.

    Pamela Price has since announced that she is running for DA again in 2022 and given the strong possibility that Soros funding will again make an appearance, it’s worth revisiting the Price campaign as a case study in how Soros-cash massively influences targeted DA races.

    An Unlikely Candidate

    Price is an interesting character. Endorsed by radical Communist Party activist Angela Davis, and left-wing actor Danny Glover, who has repeatedly defended dictators like Nicholas Maduro and Hugo Chavez, Price is not the sort of person one would expect to be interested in work as a prosecutor. In fact, as a career civil rights and defense attorney with no prior experience in prosecution, Price was an unlikely and unexpected candidate for DA from the very beginning.

    In April 2018, Price even told the Mercury News that she “never wanted to be a prosecutor” and wasn’t interested in running. The very next month, though, Price’s campaign was in full swing. What changed?

    Coincidentally, Soros’s California Justice and Public Safety PAC made its first expenditures on behalf of Price in May 2018. Surely, Soros’s sudden cash infusion was unrelated to Price’s equally sudden change of heart?

    It wouldn’t be the first time that the promise of funding from Soros’s “safety and justice” PACs apparently coaxed reluctant candidates into running.

    https://capitalresearch.org/article/alameda-county-da-election-will-likely-draw-more-soros-funding/

  6. Yes, David Xu must go free without prison time. There is no “head scratcher” here.

    First, he was merely testing Friedrich Nietzsche’s rule: “That which does not kill you, will make you stronger.” Xu was merely doing a scientific test to prove that the cadmium poison actually made his test subjects stronger, proving Nietzsche correct.

    Second, Xu recently added a new middle name, “Biden”, to his registered name. The Court agreed that adding the name “Biden” made David Biden Wu eligible for special legal treatment under both state and federal laws established under our esteemed two-tier system of justice. The DOJ wrote an amici curiae brief supporting Xu’s eligibility under these mandates.

    1. She had mentioned that she liked heavy metal, he thought she would enjoy it?

  7. Only in The Bay could attempted murder not be a crime. It’s symptomatic of the whooole thing. This is beyond absurd, and I am out of words. Eventually people ARE going to begin taking things into their own hands. The modern democratic party needs to finish lighting itself on fire, the sane among us are very, very tired of tolerating their madness.

    It can’t be said enough: if you consider yourself to be a ‘liberal’, wake up and realize who it is that you are actually fighting and fighting for – you are the most ridiculous and transparently foolish people this country has ever seen. You have a brain; use it for something better than the ‘gram or Tik-Tok. Your desperation to somehow be ‘relevant’ in 2024 is done. The rest of us know better, and we aren’t letting you call the shots anymore. human nature has not changed one iota in millennia. Stop worrying about how your metaphorical hair, that no one cared about in the first place, looks to everyone else. You are pathetic.

    You may tolerate the absolute idiocy and degeneration of your kids; the rest of us will not indefinitely. Wake up. We will very gleefully reject their sociopathy, and you can enjoy having them in your basement until you die.

    And if you work at this school, I would recommend quitting and moving to a better state, like, yesterday.

  8. The real back-story here is the failure of the Alameda County DA Pamela Price to apply the law and hold those convicted accountable with just punishment. Price, a George Soros protégés, is a perfect example of the soft on crime mentality of the Far Left- Democrats in California

  9. Put the shoe on the other foot. If DA Pamela Price was poisoned you damn well can bet there would be an attempted murder charge lodged against the person committing this crime.

  10. A life unfulfilled. O J passed away without finding the real killer. Now we’ll never know.

    1. How silly. Of course, we know. OJ Simpson is the murderer of Nicole and Ron. An admission isn’t necessary. The blood evidence was overwhelming. There is no other plausible explanation. The only reason the jury ruled in Simpson’s favor is they considered letting Simpson go free as “payback” for the Rodney King case. In other words, the jury violated their oath and duties based on an entirely different case that had absolutely nothing to do with the Simpson murder case. End of story.

      1. AMERICAN JUSTICE IS VENUE CORRUPTION

        AGGRAVATED BLACK RACISM (Say it ain’t so!)
        __________________________________________________

        “It’s the [venue], stupid!”

        – James Carville
        __________________

        Trying the O.J. Simpson Case in Terrain Hostile to Prosecution: It Wasn’t Garcetti’s Fault

        By ROGER M. GRACE

        GIL GARCETTI drew widespread derision over the loss by his office of the murder case against football Hall-of-Famer O.J. Simpson. However, what is generally regarded as a mammoth blunder by him and the prime cause of the defeat—trying the case in downtown Los Angeles rather than in Santa Monica—was not a decision he made.

        The Los Angeles Superior Court, not Garcetti, decided where the case would be tried.

        So say Court of Appeal Presiding Justice Robert M. Mallano, who was the Superior Court’s presiding judge in 1994 when the prosecution was launched, and retired Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Cecil J. Mills, who was then supervising judge of the criminal courts.

        “Gil Garcetti took a lot of heat over something that was not his doing,” Mills says.

        Simpson was charged with the June 12, 1994, mutilation-stabbings of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman. The defendant, an African American, was acquitted by the jury on Oct. 3, 1995. The panel was comprised of nine African Americans, two Anglos, one Hispanic.

        The slayings took place in Brentwood, located in the Superior Court’s West District. Had the case been tried in that district, proceedings would have taken place in the Santa Monica Courthouse, and the jury pool would have been only about 7 percent African American.

        Instead, charges were filed in the Central District, with the trial consequently being held in the Criminal Courts Building in downtown Los Angeles. The jury pool for that courthouse (renamed in 2002 after Clara Shortridge Foltz) was estimated as 31.3 percent African American.

        Indeed, at the 1996-97 civil trial of Simpson for wrongful death, staged in Santa Monica, nine of the jurors were Anglos, one Hispanic, one African American (replaced after deliberations began by an Asian American), and one person of Asian and African ancestry. That jury, under a lesser evidentiary standard, found Simpson was the killer, liable to the victims’ families in the amount of $33.5 million.

        – Metropolitan News-Enterprise http://www.metnews.com/articles/2010/perspectives050310.htm

      1. Anonymous, wow, I’ve been on the edge of my seat all these years waiting for OJ to really vindicate himself. Do you have a bridge in Brooklyn for sale? I mean cheap. And I also believe Joe Biden is preparing for his upcoming debates with Donald Trump. Biden is as sharp as a tack, I mean, have you heard him lately. One more thing, where do I send a memorial contribution to honor O J’s passing. You ought to try what I’m smoking. Anyway I hope you’re enjoying the real world.

  11. No person being wholly employed by any form of government in their making should be eligible to run to hold public office. The reasoning for this would be that they know nothing of nor have they participated in private sector generation of commerce. They would only understand that their own financial interests are totally dependent upon bureaucratic expansion and taxation. Ergo Democrats and Socialists

  12. OT:
    Multiple murderer OJ Simpson is dead and his soul is being now being judged for his life deeds. Look at the people’s lives that took up the lies for him knowing he killed these people.

    Kardashian dead
    Cochran dead
    Greer ??

    Call it God or Karma, a horrific end.

    Some obituaries are an easy read, this is one.

  14. Unbelievable! This defendant committed aggravated assault and did so in an on-going, calculated scheme which terminated only when he was caught on tape. Meanwhile, there are at least three people walking around with excess cadmium in their bodies— Apparently this metal builds up over time with exposure (and we are all exposed to some amounts) causing kidney damage, weakened bones, and cancer.

    There’s something seriously wrong with this defendant’s mental and/or moral processes.

  15. The photo shows him to be rather pale. Why couldn’t he be punished as a whitemale?

    We should thank our lucky stars that he’s a Chinaman metallurgist. Were he a biochemist, he might’ve engineered a deadly virus and poisoned the whole world.

  16. There are no categorical moral imperatives. Everyone has the right to be equally in danger.

  17. Crime novelist’s have made a fortune concocting compelling mysteries around “the perfect crime.” These typically involve the dogged efforts of detectives piecing together the faintest of evidence to eventually arrest and prosecute some criminal mastermind. In the real world, today, the criminal mastermind is behind the curtain somewhere in the Department of Justice. The public face of this sinister cabal are prosecutors whose primary mission is to “reform” the criminal justice system into a revolving door injustice system. In this system, there is no need to be concerned if a crime is detected or investigated. If committed in the right jurisdiction, it’s reasonable to conclude prosecutors will be your best defense.

  18. Anonymous
    The “spycam” footage is either from a private company or from a public use location. I would imagine it is completely admissible as evidence just as surveillance cameras are at a gas station or mini mart. Most businesses that employ surveillance cameras have it noted to employees through Human Resources notifications addressed in the employee handbooks.

    1. From the article, it sounds like this was a pen camera stuck in somewhere, not a normal fixed surveillance camera. There will be plenty of times when this is not an issue at all, but other times where it might be. That’s why I posed it as a question. Could there be a problem with the evidence? I’m not saying that there is or that this DA is justified. I’ve just seen other cases where there was outrage, but you look under the surface and there are reasons why the suspect was given a much easier plea deal. Of course, there are plenty of other cases where the DA threw the case because of their own ideology. That may very well be the case here. I don’t know.

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