San Francisco entrepreneur charged with domestic violence

A 31-year-old San Francisco millionaire once dubbed “one of the youngest, and also the wealthiest entrepreneurs on the Planet Earth” by Oprah Winfrey was charged Thursday with dozens of domestic violence-related crimes, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Gurbaksh Chahal -- founder, chairman and chief executive of the online advertising company RadiumOne -- was charged with 45 felonies and accused of assaulting his girlfriend on Monday, the Chronicle reported.

Among the charges are two counts of false imprisonment and assault with a deadly weapon, a pillow.

Chahal, described as a “die-hard Internet entrepreneur” on Radium One’s website, started his first company, ClickAgents, at the age of 16 and sold it 18 months later for $40 million. In 2007, he sold his second company, BlueLithium, to Yahoo! for $300 million, according to Radium One.

One of Chahal’s attorneys, Stuart Gordon, told the Chronicle that the charges were “blown out of proportion” and that Chahal had just been in an argument that got out of hand.

Chahal grew up in a San Jose housing project after his family emigrated from India, he said in a 2008 interview on “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” In school, he was often picked on for looking different, he said.

In the interview, he takes the television cameras on a tour of his high-rise San Francisco condominium with wallpaper from the Hard Rock Hotel and a ride in his white car that he says cost about $240,000.

After the 2012 shooting at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisc., that left six dead, Chahal put $1 million toward establishing the BeProud Foundation, “designed to create awareness campaigns to stop future hate crimes,” according to his website.

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hailey.branson@latimes.com

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