Politics

Major Democratic donor pleads guilty to domestic abuse, only receives community service

Scott Greer Contributor
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Multi-millionaire tech entrepreneur Gurbaksh Chahal was charged with 45 felony counts for a vicious incident where he allegedly punched and kicked his girlfriend 117 times and attempted to smother her.

After a judge ruled the video footage taken from Chahal’s bedroom inadmissible in court and Chahal’s girlfriend withdrew her testimony, he pled guilty to two charges — one of domestic violence battery and one of battery.

His punishment was a mere 25 hours of community service, three years of probation and a 52-hour education course on domestic violence, The Daily Mail reports.

Chahal is a prominent donor to Democratic causes and has visited the White House on two occasions since 2011 to meet with Obama.

According to Open Secrets, the California-based girlfriend beater has given over $108,000 to Democratic campaigns and causes since 2011. For the 2012 campaign, he gave a whopping $61,600 to the fundraising arm of the Democratic National Committee and $5,000 directly to the Obama presidential campaign.

For the 2014 election cycle, he has given $20,000 to the DNC and $6,200 to Ro Khanna, a Democratic candidate for California’s 17th U.S. House seat who strongly supports the Violence Against Women Act. In the part of the website that exclusively deals with “Women’s Issues,” Khanna outlines his plan to stamp out violence against women.

“The Violence Against Women Act, which was reauthorized earlier this year, is a comprehensive federal law recognizing the severity of violence women face. It has strengthened federal penalties for repeat sex offenders, covered costs of rape exams for victims, and focused on the needs of underserved communities, among several other provisions,” the statement reads.

The statement does admit, “Unfortunately, we still have a tremendous amount of work to do.”

A spokeswoman for the DNC told The Daily Caller that it has returned Chahal’s 2014 contribution upon learning of his conviction of domestic violence battery. “Domestic violence of any kind is absolutely unacceptable, and as soon as we learned of his actions, the DNC took immediate action to return all contributions from this cycle,” Rebecca Chalif, the DNC’s deputy press secretary stated to TheDC.

Chahal made his millions through online advertising start-ups and is currently the CEO of RadiumOne, a company that reportedly earns $100 million a year. He was once named one of America’s “most eligible bachelors” and was sympathetically interviewed by Oprah Winfrey in 2008.

He is continuing to run RadiumOne in spite of conviction and frequently posts inspirational material on social media, including a post that outlined “15 Things Leaders Never Do.”

The Ro Khanna campaign had not responded to a request for comment by publication time.

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