PALO ALTO — A judge Thursday approved a domestic violence plea deal for a tech executive that his wife and women’s advocates had decried as too lenient.
But Judge Allison M. Danner modified former Cuberon CEO Abhishek Gattani’s original sentence somewhat by ordering him to report to jail Friday, five months earlier than called for under the deal negotiated by the prosecutor and his defense lawyer over the objection of Gattani’s wife, Neha Rastogi.
Danner also added a new condition of his three-year probation — that he not drink alcohol, saying it seemed to be a factor in his abusive behavior toward Rastogi, who contended he had been hitting her for 10 years. The judge also required Gattani for at least the first six months to carry an electronic monitoring device that resembles a cell phone, which will test his blood-alcohol content at least four times a day via face recognition and a breathalyzer.
But the judge sentenced Gattani the same term negotiated under the plea deal: 30 days in jail, With credits for good behavior and two days already served following his arrest a year ago, his additional actual time behind bars will total 13 days. Gattani also will spend two and a half months picking up trash four days a week along the freeways.
During the tense, hour-long hearing in Santa Clara County Superior Court on Thursday, Rastogi read an emotional two-page statement, beseeching the judge to put Gattani behind bars for six full months. She also castigated the District Attorney’s Office for writing a memo defending the plea agreement, which the judge had ordered the office to produce. The memo laid out the difficulties prosecutors would face if they took the case to trial, including the fact that by the time Rastogi went to police last spring, she only had two faint bruises, which might not meet the “traumatic condition” required to prove a felony. It also noted she and her husband were embroiled in a custody case in family court.
But Rastogi characterized the memo as a “total invasion of privacy” that contained multiple errors and revealed private details about herself and the couple’s toddler.
“My abuse continued by proxy, by the court system,” she told the judge, questioning whether she would have to be dead or gravely injured for prosecutors to try the case. “Domestic violence is truly terrorism and should be termed such.”
The case exploded into public view when Rastogi posted a victim-impact statement online in April. Like “Emily Doe,’’ whose speech decrying Stanford student-athlete Brock Turner’s light sentence became a viral rallying cry against “rape culture,’’ Rastogi’s statement about her husband’s plea deal drew sympathy.
The deal also has been criticized because it reduces the chances Gattani will be deported to his native India than if he had been convicted of a violent felony. However, Gattani could still be deported; the case also has been mentioned by U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions as an example of a permissive immigration system he plans to whip into shape.
On Thursday, Danner said she listened to 13 audio recordings Rastogi made of her husband’s allegedly abusive behavior, but found only one — in which it appeared Gattani slapped her nine times — to meet the criteria for criminal behavior. Rastogi was permitted to record her interactions with her husband at the time because he was under a restraining order allowing only peaceful contact stemming from his first conviction in 2015.
This time around, Gattani had faced two felony counts of domestic violence for allegedly beating Rastogi on two occasions, including the recording with the slaps. But prosecutors, citing difficulties in proving the case, agreed to let Gattani plead no contest to a felony “accessory after the fact” and misdemeanor “offensive touching’’ — even though it would be his second conviction related to allegations of domestic violence.
Rastogi also addressed the accessory charge in her statement before the judge, saying “How is he an accomplice? An accomplice to himself?”
At an earlier hearing in May, the judge also questioned the charge. In a brief filed at her request earlier this week, prosecutors argued that the law requiring the judge to find a factual basis for a no-contest plea has nothing to do with whether Gattani’s conduct meets the elements of the charge. The test, they said, is whether Gattani understood the facts and consequences of what he was doing earlier this year when he pleaded no contest.
Danner essentially agreed Thursday, noting it was permissible under a California Supreme Court decision.
After the hearing, Gattani’s lawyer Mike Paez declined to comment. Rastogi’s lawyer, Michael Pascoe, said the sentence was disappointing. Assistant District Attorney Brian Welch said there are “just cases where the prosecutors and the victim are always going to differ.”
About 20 people rallied outside court before the hearing. Papiha Nandy, who organized the rally, said she hoped the high-profile case will send a much-needed message.
“Domestic violence is kept under wraps, we do not talk about it,” she said, referring to the large immigrant community from South Asia in the Bay Area. “As a community it’s time to stand up against it, act and speak up to spread the message that it won’t be tolerated at all.”
Gattani’s first domestic-violence-related incident was witnessed by a Palo Alto mail carrier, who saw him pummeling her. But at the request of both Gattani and Rastogi, prosecutors reduced the misdemeanor domestic violence charge against him to disturbing the peace after Rastogi recanted her accusations. Gattani completed a 52-week domestic violence class and at the couple’s request was released early in 2015 from formal probation and had his conviction expunged.
Stanford law professor Michele Dauber said the effort to change the plea deal made a difference, even if activists didn’t get everything they wanted. Dauber is leading the recall effort against Judge Aaron Persky, the judge who sentenced Brock Turner.
“The fact that the judge is sending him to jail sooner as Neha requested,” Dauber said, “shows that when women in the community rise up to demand that violence be taken more seriously, we can get results, even if in this case it was too little too late.