Silicon Valley scandals are hardly rare these days. Yet this new story is shocking the business world. A top CEO just got a prison sentence for domestic abuse. Seriously. This is the full story of the Silicon Valley CEO abuse scandal…
It sounds like something out of House Of Cards. Or even Broadchurch. Two professionals, a history of vicious domestic violence and the couple’s child witnessing the fights. But this isn’t playing out on our TV screens, this is real life.
The alleged abuse was apparently between co-founder and CEO of customer behaviour analytics company Cuberon, Abhishek Gattani, and his wife, Neha Rastogi, a previous exec at Apple. The couple have been married for 10 years.
The wife in this case, Rastogi, was a hugely influential senior at Apple. She worked on major projects including Siri, FaceTime and Maps, and she was often seated next to Steve Jobs himself. This makes the events all the more harrowing that she employed an Apple iPhone to record the alleged violence. The recording, obtained by publication The Daily Beast, features repeated thwacks, and the listener then realises that the couple’s 2-year-old daughter was present.
The case went to trail and Gattani has now reached an agreement with the prosecution. He will now serve a 30-day prison sentence.
Criminal cases featuring top CEOs
In the last few months we have seen quite a few top CEOs embroiled in abuse cases. Steven Bannon, Trump’s campaign CEO faced domestic violence charges just a few months ago. There is the ongoing investigation, led by former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, about charges of sexual harassment at Uber. Then Google’s Kelly Ellis accused two top execs at the company of sexual harassment and abuse.
Is violence and abuse amongst people in power becoming more common?
CEO crime is a thing now. Why?
Only last week we were discussing how 2 in 3 board members are willing to accept bribery to help their businesses. Are through-the-roof stress levels to blame for the rise in crime amongst top professionals? Last year the City of London Police’s National Fraud Intelligence Bureau showed that over £32 million has reportedly been lost as a result of CEO fraud. What is next for the business world? And what secrets are yet to come out?
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