'The system failed me.' Woman poisoned by co-worker speaks out after his conviction is dismissed

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Set us as preferred For two years, highly trained metallurgist Rong Yuan worried she was going crazy.Her hair was falling out as she dealt with chronic nausea and vomiting, but doctors could not figure out what was causing her mysterious illness.She then considered a frightening explanation when her mother detected a funny taste to the water she kept in a bottle at her desk at Berkeley Engineering and Research.Maybe she was being poisoned.

Yuan decided to surreptitiously install a camera at work, and what it captured made her stomach curdle.In a video from March 4, 2019, her coworker David Xu can be seen approaching her desk, pouring a substance into the bottle, screwing the lid back on and quickly walking away.

Testing revealed that water samples from her bottle contained levels of the toxic heavy metal cadmium far above the federal limit for drinking water, according to court documents.Xu was arrested in 2019 and ultimately convicted of one count of felony poisoning.

His motivation for the crime is unclear.On Monday, a judge approved Xu’s petition to have his felony charge dismissed following the completion of his probation earlier this year.For years, Yuan has avoided public attention, but said she recently decided to break her silence as she feared Xu could get a job at another company and go on to harm others.“Once a judge approves his petition, no company can find the criminal record based on background search; now they also need to do an internet search,” Yuan told The Times on Tuesday.

She initially released the video and spoke to the San Francisco Standard last week upon learning of his upcoming hearing.Under California law, a judge is required to dismiss the poisoning charge if every condition of probation has been followed.“We joined the victims to oppose the motion pursuant to Penal Code section 1203.4,...