San Francisco: Internet mogul Gurbaksh Chahal who sold his startup for $300 million at the age of 25 and appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show as a highly eligible bachelor was sentenced to a year in jail for violating his probation in a domestic violence case.
Chahal has defended himself against the initial charges, saying he lost his temper but did not hit his girlfriend 117 times. And his attorneys have attacked the second woman’s credibility, saying she got into a sham marriage to get a US visa and had been drinking the night she said Chahal hit her.
Indian American’s rise from a high school dropout to a 25-year-old Internet mogul also landed him on Extra in segments touting him as a highly eligible bachelor. That image began crumbling when prosecutors charged him with dozens of felonies in 2013, saying surveillance footage from his San Francisco penthouse showed him punching and kicking his girlfriend 117 times and trying to smother her with a pillow. Chahal avoided prison, receiving probation instead, after the woman stopped cooperating with authorities and a judge said the video could not be used as evidence.He violated his probation by allegedly kicking another girlfriend, who also didn’t help with the case, prosecutors say. Video of the first attack made it into San Francisco Superior Court, where a judge was set to sentence the 34-year-old.