Wife charged after husband noticed odd taste in tea and recorded her, CA officials say
.jpg "A woman accused of poisoning her husband’s tea with “liquid drain cleaner,” leaving him with stomach ulcers, has been charged, California officials said.")
A woman accused of poisoning her husband’s tea with “liquid drain cleaner,” leaving him with stomach ulcers, has been charged, California officials said.
Dermatologist Yue “Emily” Yu, 45, of Irvine is now facing “three felony counts of poisoning and one felony count of domestic battery with corporal injury,” the Orange County District Attorney’s Office said in an April 5 news release.
“Our homes should be where we feel the safest,” Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in the release. “Yet, a licensed medical professional capitalized on her husband’s daily rituals to torment her husband by systematically plying his tea with a Drano-like substance intending to cause him pain and suffering.”
An attorney for Yu did not immediately respond to McClatchy News’ request for comment.
In April 2022, Yu’s husband noticed “a strange taste to the tea he drinks every day,” prosecutors said.
After the taste did not subside, he installed cameras in the family’s kitchen and started recording his wife “to see if he could capture any evidence of why his tea tastes strange,” according to prosecutors.
The husband captured his wife “pouring a substance out of a bottle of liquid drain cleaner” into his tea on three occasions in July, the district attorney’s office said.
In addition to the recordings, Yu’s husband also took samples of the tea to the Irvine Police Department, which sent the evidence to the FBI for testing, according to prosecutors.
Prosecutors said the samples showed “the substance was consistent with liquid drain cleaner.”
Yu was arrested in August, McClatchy News previously reported. She was released on $30,000 bond.
If convicted on all counts, Yu could face up to eight years and eight months in prison, according to prosecutors. She is expected to appear in court on April 18.
The Medical Board of California will determine if Yu will be allowed to “continue to practice medicine,” the district attorney’s office said.
This story was originally published April 5, 2023 at 5:36 PM with the headline "Wife charged after husband noticed odd taste in tea and recorded her, CA officials say."
