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Major Democratic Donor Could Face Jail Time in Second Domestic Abuse Case

Tech mogul Gurbaksh Chahal / Screenshot from YouTube
August 8, 2016

A former high-dollar Obama donor who avoided jail time three years ago after surveillance video caught him on tape beating his then-girlfriend may land behind bars for a separate domestic abuse case.

Tech mogul Gurbaksh Chahal faced 45 felony charges of domestic abuse in 2013 when CCTV footage recorded him kicking his girlfriend 117 times and trying to smother her with a pillow. The girlfriend reportedly told police that Chahal said he was going to kill her four times during the incident.

Chahal pled guilty to two misdemeanor charges and was given three months of probation while evading jail for the alleged 30-minute assault after a judge deemed the video inadmissible because it was obtained without a warrant.

Chahal now faces up to two years in prison for a separate abuse case that alleges he violated his probation after a new girlfriend called 911 to say that Chahal had physically assaulted her in his penthouse, New York Magazine reported Monday.

The second girlfriend, who Chahal had met in Las Vegas, Nevada while the first case was pending, suddenly refused to cooperate with investigators after reporting in court papers that the tech mogul had threatened to turn her in for immigration fraud.

The district attorney’s office, which only needs a preponderance of evidence to demonstrate Chahal violated his probation when he allegedly assaulted the second woman, asked the judge to permit the 2013 footage to be used as evidence that the second incident was a repeat offense.

The judge agreed, and Chahal is expected to be sentenced Friday—three years and one week after he allegedly assaulted the first woman.

Financial disclosure records show that Chahal has donated more than $100,000 to the Democratic Party and Democratic candidates. Those contributions included $81,600 to the Democratic National Committee and $5,000 to President Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign.

Chahal visited the White House twice in 2011 and 2012 to meet with Obama, according to White House visitor logs, the Washington Free Beacon reported in 2014. Chalal also greeted the president at a 2012 San Francisco dinner.

In a separate lawsuit, a former employee at the California-based digital ad startup Gravity4 filed a separate wrongful termination lawsuit Sept. 2015 in a San Francisco federal court describing Chahal’s actions as CEO.

"Chahal, fueled by a toxic cocktail of prescription drugs, party drugs, alcohol, and sycophants, subjected his associates and Gravity4 employees to daily abuse, humiliation, racist taunts, extortionate manipulation, tales of revenge, and threats of violence," the suit says.

"Chahal frequently referred to women in the workplace in both vulgar and derogatory terms. For example, during the hiring process, Chahal would refer to allowing an attractive woman to proceed in the interview process, as a ‘pussy pass,’" the suit added.

That lawsuit is still ongoing.