This is one of those stories that could probably only happen in Berkeley, California. A woman named Rong Yuan worked at a Berkeley engineering company and in 2017 she found herself getting suddenly and inexplicably ill. Over the next two years her illness continued but after multiple trips to the hospital no one could figure out what was wrong.
She feared stomach cancer, but a gastroscopy found nothing. It felt like she was dying.
Desperate for answers and suspecting something unspeakable, she bought a spy camera off Amazon and hid it around her office desk.
The footage it captured would finally lead to a diagnosis — and to the shocking arrest in March 2019 of her coworker David Xu on charges of attempted murder and poisoning. According to a Berkeley Police Department report, Xu had put cadmium — a toxic heavy metal — into Yuan’s “food and water on multiple occasions for over a year.”
Xu was arrested and faced serious charges of poisoning and attempted murder. He could have gone to jail for life but luckily for him voters elected a Soros-backed prosecutor named Pamela Price who promised fewer incarcerations on her watch.
Xu faced up to life in state prison, but Price offered him a plea deal of one count of poisoning and one year of probation. The deal shocked even the judge, who remarked at Xu’s 2024 sentencing hearing that it was “extremely generous, considering everything in this case” and doubled his probation to two years.
The probation officer in the case recommended no jail time:
“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.”
Ultimately, Xu spent a total of about 10 days in jail for nearly killing a woman he worked with. In fact, she probably would have died if she hadn't caught Xu in the act with the spy camera. Now Xu is heading back to court to ask that the felony count against him be expunged from his record. It sounds like there may not be anything anyone can do to stop it.
The district attorney’s office has objected to the request for dismissal, but California law says the judge must grant the dismissal if Xu completed every condition of his probation. His petition will be heard Monday at 9 a.m. in Department 109 of Alameda County Superior Court.
But his victim is speaking out for the first time. Today she released the video that kickstarted the case against Xu.
Between 2017 and 2019, Rong Yuan suffered from severe, unexplained illnesses. Suspicious of her surroundings at the forensic engineering firm Berkeley Engineering and Research, she installed a hidden spy camera at her desk. https://t.co/vC7pfZmxLF
— Mayte Chummia (@Maytechummia) October 12, 2026
The hearing should have happened by now but I don't see any word of the outcome. Xu should have spent several years in prison instead of being given this ridiculous sweetheart deal. But that's what happens when you elect a ridiculous, woke DA like Pamela Price. Price was eventually recalled but the damage was done.
Editor’s Note: The American people overwhelmingly support President Trump’s law and order agenda.
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