by Kate Conger
In a blog post published Monday, RadiumOne's former CEO Gurbaksh Chahal claimed his fellow board members pressured him to plead guilty in the domestic violence case against him and blamed "social media bloggers" for drawing attention to the case. His replacement at RadiumOne, former chief operating officer Bill Lonergan, issued a company-wide memo today that denied Chahal's claims and expressed hope that the former CEO would neither hurt nor distract the company.
Chahal plead guilty on April 16 to two misdemeanor counts of battery. The San Francisco district attorney's office initially charged him with 45 felonies for allegedly punching and kicking his girlfriend over 100 times in his apartment after discovering she had cheated on him during a trip to Las Vegas.
Home-surveillance video captured the alleged attack, but a judge did not allow the video to be played in court, saying police seized the tape unlawfully.
In the memo, obtained by Re/code, Lonergan writes, "We cannot know for certain what Gurbaksh will do, and certainly hope he will take no action that hurts or distracts the company. We do not believe he has any legitimate claims against the company, and we are therefore confident that the company would prevail against such claims."
Lonergan also asserted that the board did not pressure Chahal to plea guilty, stating, "Gurbaksh and only Gurbaksh made the final decision on whether to accept the plea agreement."
RadiumOne has recently been preparing for an IPO. Longergan wrote in the memo that the IPO would likely proceed, despite Chahal's firing.