NewsIndiaTimes - page 13

News India Times August 12, 2016
13
Community
– that’s all you need to know
The Rise And Fall Of A Silicon Valley Mogul Accused Of Domestic Violence
By a StaffWriter
n Indo-Canadian man
pleaded guilty to a conspir-
acy to export from the
United States into Canada
in a case involving the
largest seizure of cocaine in
Western New York history.
Alvin Randhawa, 35, of
British Columbia, Canada, who
was extradited to the U.S. to
stand trial, pleaded before U.S.
Magistrate Judge Leslie G.
Foschio, according to the U.S.
Attorney for the Western
District of New York William J.
Hochul, Jr. Randhawa faces 10
years in prison, a maximum of
life, and a $10,000,000 fine.
Randhawa was indicted
along with Gursharan Singh
and another man of Indian ori-
gin. Singh has been convicted.
Also charged in the conspiracy
were Ravinder Arora, Michael
Bagri and Parminder Sidhu.
Arora, Bagri and Sidhu have
been convicted according to an
Aug. 15 release from Hochul’s
office. “This case represents a
success against another major
international narcotics traffick-
ing organization – this time
operating in Canada,” Hochul is
quoted saying in the press
release.
Investigators believe that this
organization trafficked approxi-
mately 2,000 kilograms of
cocaine (approximately
$80,000,000 in value) during the
course of the conspiracy.
According to Assistant U.S.
Attorney Timothy C. Lynch,
who is handling the case, the
conspiracy operated between
July 2010 and May 2011, during
which Randhawa along with
others, attempted to smuggle
cocaine into Canada from the
United States via several inter-
national bridges including ones
in the Buffalo-Niagara region.
Man Pleads Guilty In Largest Seizure of Cocaine In Upstate New York
Continued from page 12
Chahal was offered a plea
deal for two misdemeanor
charges related to domestic
violence, and he took it. He was
sentenced to a $500 fine, com-
munity service, domestic vio-
lence courses and three years
of probation, according to
reports.
Experts say that indeed
money can buy better legal
resources, but also that more
than 90 percent of criminal
cases end in plea bargains.
After sentencing, Chahal -
who had maintained his inno-
cence all along - spoke out on
social media, saying the allega-
tions were “overblown.”
“Rather than continuing a
political witch hunt for another
year attempting to fully clear
my name . . . I got cornered to
accept a misdemeanor plea
with a $500 fine to resolve the
matter and move on with my
life,” he wrote on Twitter at the
time, according to Business
Insider. (The tweets were later
deleted.)
“For the last 10 months
there were overblown allega-
tions against me because of my
alleged high-profile status,” he
reportedly wrote.
“Is the internet this stupid to
read one side of the story by
tabloids vs. the actual truth?
Grow up people before u judge
false allegations.”
Amid a firestorm over the
domestic violence allegations,
Chahal was ousted in 2014 by
his own board of trustees at
RadiumOne, his third start-up.
The ad-tech firm’s founding
CEO was furious.
“I was going through hell,
both professionally and per-
sonally,” Chahal wrote in an
open letter to the trustees,
according to CNN Money. “I
thought I could count on your
support as a board, as execu-
tives, and as a team and you
abandoned me when I most
needed your support. And
what did I do to deserve this,
when all I’ve ever done is to
put the interests of you and the
Company ahead of my own?”
By that fall, Chahal was run-
ning a competing company
called Gravity4 and dating a
Korean woman who he claimed
was involved in a “green card”
marriage with another man to
help her stay in the United
States.
Yousef Khraibut, a former
friend and Gravity4 employee,
claimed in his lawsuit that
Chahal had threatened to have
his new girlfriend deported “if
she ever crossed him.”
Khraibut painted Chahal as
“brogrammer” who subsisted
on “a toxic cocktail of prescrip-
tion drugs, party drugs, alcohol
and sycophants,” referred to
woman as “b----” and “h--”
when texting male colleagues,
and called himself the “Indian
Brad Pitt,” according to the
lawsuit.
When Chahal’s penthouse
was relisted earlier this year
with “a huge price cut” (just
under $8 million), the San
Francisco Chronicle referred to
the property’s owner as “one of
the Silicon Valley’s most con-
demned tech entrepreneurs.”
The set of second domestic
violence accusations came in
September 2014, when
Chahal’s girlfriend called
police.
“Chahal, meanwhile, called
Khraibut to come up to the
apartment after the incident,”
Khraibut claimed in the court
documents. “Chahal instructed
Khraibut to tell the police that
Khraibut had been in the con-
dominium during the alleged
incident, and corroborate
Chahal’s story.”
The allegation? That
Chahal’s bodyguard had
removed the woman from
Chahal’s bedroom after the two
argued about condoms,
according to the lawsuit.
During legal proceedings,
the woman went back to South
Korea, according to reports.
Prosecutors blamed Chahal
and his bodyguard for threat-
ening her and scaring her
away; Chahal’s attorney said
she was running from U.S.
immigration authorities,
according to the Chronicle.
“It’s our theory she’s not here
because she’s committed feder-
al fraud,” Lassart told the judge
in May, according to the news-
paper.
The judge allowed the
woman’s 911 call and state-
ments to medical personnel to
be used as evidence. Then, in
July, she ruled that a prepon-
derance of the evidence
showed Chahal had violated
his probation, according to the
Chronicle.
In the interview with Foundr
last year, Chahal was asked
about his “lowest moment.”
“I would say there’s no such
thing as a lowest moment,
mainly because there’s many
moments,” he said, referring to
his early days in America.
He added: “One of the things
I realize is success and
anonymity are something that
are probably the most priceless
things you can have because
the more successful you are,
and you lose that anonymity, it
becomes harder to be success-
ful.
“So some of your low points
don’t come from something
you necessarily do; they come
from the exterior parts of the
world that actually wants to
bring you down.”
– The Washington Post
I
By a StaffWriter
R
aj Shah, director of
Koehler Instrument
Company, based in
Holtsville, NY, was recently
named Fellow of Energy
Institute and the Society of
Tribologists and Lubrication
Engineers, and elevated to the
status of Chartered Scientist.
The honored was given to
Shah, a Penn State chemical
engineering alumnus, at the
institute’s annual meeting in
Las Vegas, Nev. Aug. 9. He was
cited for his outstanding serv-
ice and contributions in the
field of petroleum and petro-
chemical engineering.
STLE is the premier inter-
national technical society cur-
rently serving the needs of
numerous engineers and sci-
entist as well as a number of
companies and organizations
that comprise the tribology
and lubrication engineering
sector.
Shah earned his doctoral
degree in chemical engineer-
ing from Penn State in 1995
and has spent 20 years work-
ing in the oil and gas industry.
Since earning his Ph.D.,
Shah has retained ties with
Penn State and currently
serves as a member of the
Industrial and Professional
Advisory Council for the
school of engineering design,
technology and professional
Programs. He previously
served as a college of engi-
neering representative for
Penn State’s Graduate School
Alumni Society.
He is also involved with
several other universities and
serves on the industrial board
of advisers for the department
of chemical engineering at the
State University of New York,
Stony Brook.
New Yorker Raj Shah Is Named
Chartered Scientist Of Engineering Body
1...,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12 14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,...40
Powered by FlippingBook