Berkeley engineer battles illness for years, then her mother notices a smell in her water bottle. She installs a camera: ‘Shocked. I don’t know why’

Rong Yuan, an engineer in California, is making her first public comments on being poisoned at work. A judge has expunged the colleague’s felony conviction in her case, over objections from prosecutors. According to ABC7, her symptoms began in 2017 and included hair loss and vomiting that doctors could not explain.

For over two years, Yuan saw one physician after another while her health kept declining. Her mother noticed that the water bottle gave off an odd smell. Washing it changed nothing, so Yuan placed a tiny camera near her workspace. Yuan’s footage showed David Xu, a colleague at the Berkeley engineering firm where she worked, emptying a substance into the bottle. Testing later showed it was cadmium, a toxic heavy metal.

A report that KGO, an ABC station, reviewed found that cadmium in a water sample exceeded the federal level by a factor of 3.5 million. Yuan said, “Shocked. I don’t know why,” when asked what she thought after reviewing the video she recorded. Yuan and both of her parents tested positive for the metal, and she says that likely happened because they cooked with water from that bottle.

Conviction expunged after probation

Prosecutors filed premeditated attempted murder and poisoning charges against Xu in 2019, stated Ursula Jones Dickson, the district attorney for Alameda County. The matter was settled with a plea to one felony poisoning count. He received a two-year probation term and no more jail time. At sentencing, the judge described the arrangement as “extremely generous, considering everything in this case.” Pleas also resolve murder cases, as when a man pleaded guilty to murder in Arizona.

Probation ended in March, and Xu then petitioned to have the case dismissed. A judge in Alameda County granted the request on October 12. Dickson said her office joined the victims in opposing the motion, citing Penal Code section 1203.4. That law lets someone who finishes probation withdraw a plea and get the charges dismissed, releasing the person from “all penalties and disabilities” tied to the offense.

Disclosure is still required on applications for public office and for licenses from state or local agencies. A prosecutor can also bring up the dismissed conviction in a later case. “I don’t think he deserves a second chance,” Yuan said. She has no explanation for why Xu singled her out. In her account, he had steered her away from lab work and suggested she look elsewhere for jobs.

The poisoning also reached her family, Yuan said, and she carries guilt because the contaminated water went home with her. “If I don’t bring the water back home, they won’t be poisoned,” she said. Her father died of heart failure last year, and part of her reason for speaking now is him. Yuan still deals with health problems and works part time. According to Yuan, her restitution request of $500,000 brought $7,000.