Hidden-camera footage released this week shows a Berkeley materials engineer calmly adding a substance to a colleague's desk water bottle — a substance later confirmed as cadmium, a carcinogenic heavy metal, at concentrations reaching 3.5 million times the federal drinking water limit. Seven years after that footage was recorded, the man responsible is walking away with his felony conviction cleared from standard employer searches.
The case has exposed a structural tension inside California's criminal justice system: completing a probation term legally entitles a convicted poisoner to have a felony removed from routine employment background checks, regardless of how severe the original offense was or how permanently the victim has been affected.
