Silicon Valley CEO Pleads ‘No Contest’ to Abusing His Wife

>Fein noted that the plea calls for a six-month jail term, though only 30 days of actual incarceration, with the balance served in the weekend-work program, doing manual labor for eight-hour shifts but otherwise at liberty. Fein maintained that Rastogi offered no objection when he provided her with the details of the deal.

Some other lovely things this guy said: >“Yeah I would like to see you murdered,” he says. “I used to always think, like in some murders (in movies and all) they show that the murderer stabbed the victim with a knife 45 times; how would someone do that. Killing someone even once is so difficult to accomplish. Then how can that person/man stab the knife in the victim’s body so many times. I now imagine and can relate now to doing that to you. And I am not kidding. If you can’t believe me I can swear on anyone’s life.”

This doesn't seem like justice given this is his second incident. I am all for second chances, but beating your wife probably multiple times should be grounds for having the book thrown at you including getting kicked out of the country. How he is getting 30 days for all the things he put this women though. They need to throw him jail for a while.

The point I want to make is abusers come from all walks of life and are of every nationality. Please do not use this incident as an excuse to generalize or discriminate against Indians or any other particular group. Abusers need to be punished to the full extent of the law, regardless their origin. In this particular case you can look up on crunchbase who funded this guy's company and try to bear pressure.

That seems odd. Not saying Rosen's decision is as malformed as Aaron Pesky's, but it deserves some questioning.

This how an abuser works, subtly and forcefully both. The dialogue is also bizarre in that it focuses on technical details as a vehicle (and would be almost incomprehensible 10 years ago.

It shows how the justice system works at the retail ("end user") level, when most discussion of justice issues happens at a macro level.

And it shows how ubiquitous cameras/recording devices change not just police and politicians, not just big airlines, but the justice in proples' lives. Ubiquitous surveillance cuts both ways.

(Plus there's the weirdness of the court being in "fabled Palo Alto" -- wtf?)

Obviously this is not unique to tech, but hearing a guy beat his wife over a "bug", something I deal with and talk to people about at work daily, is really disturbing in a unique way.

Why would he even care if he gets deported. Does America really want scum like this? Silicon Valley investors will invest in his company anyway, just the way United stock has sprung back.

This makes me incredibly sad how such actions go away unpunished without any serious repercussions.

towards the end of the article:

"The parties had apparently decided to knock the two days off what was effectively a 15-day jail sentence, making it 13 for Gattani. And Gattani would be allowed to serve the weekends first, in accordance with his preference."

(the "two days" refers to portions of two consecutive days Gattani spent in jail immediately after his arrest.)

the sentence is of course based on the crime he was charged with--but he crime he was charged with was not "felony assault", instead it was watered down to avoid any chance that he'll be deported.

But to 36-year-old Rastogi’s dismay, the top charge against Abhishek was reduced from felony assault to felony accessory after the fact, with an accompanying misdemeanor of “offensive touching.”

so those nine or so loud whacks heard in the audio recording--the sound of Gattani hitting his wife on the side of the head with a closed fist--were just "offensive touching"

and the "accessory after the fact" is just bizarre. Gattani wasn't an accessory to the assault, he was the assailant--the only one!

The particular type of accessory--"after the fact"--refers to someone who did not even participate in the primary offense, but was only involved after it was committed (eg, usually invoked when someone conceals or destroys evidence of the crime).

and even to that Alice-in-Wonderland charge, Gattani only had to plead "no contest"; apparently he wasn't required to plead "guilty" to get the benefit of the plea bargain.

In a conversation recently between my wife and an Indian neighbor, it was mentioned in passing that a spouse would be jailed for physical abuse. The married Indian women looked rather worried and asked if it happened just once and that was it then surely no one would get in trouble?

Also extremely upsetting to see next to nothing about it on twitter. We badger United (rightfully so), but us living and working here in the Bay Area barely seem to even notice things like this. It's our voice that can have the most impact here in at the very least making it difficult for him to keep his job. Without severe consequences people, especially those in power, will continue to abuse.