An Orange County man has lawyered up to seek custody of his children and a restraining order against his wife, after he says she tried to poison him with drain cleaner.
That's according to documents filed in Orange County Superior Court on Friday, Aug. 5, and shared with NBCLA on Wednesday by the man's lawyer.
Jack Chen, a 53-year-old Irvine resident and radiologist, alleges that his wife, 45-year-old dermatologist Yue "Emily" Yu, began adding Drano to his drinks in March and April of this year.
It was at that point that he began noticing "a chemical taste" in the lemonade he regularly drank.
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Shortly after, he developed symptoms that drove him to see a doctor, who diagnosed him with "two stomach ulcers, gastritis, and esophagitis," the filing claims.
The combination of his medical conditions and the strange taste led Chen to place cameras around the kitchen of the home he, his wife, and their two children share. According to Chen's testimony in the filing, those cameras recorded Yu pouring Drano into his drinks on three separate occasions.
Screenshots from the video are included in the filing, and show a woman in a sweater moving around a kitchen. In one image, she can be seen pouring something from a large bottle that appears to be made of red plastic.
He reported the poisoning incidents to the Irvine Police Department, who sent officers to arrest Yu on Thursday, Aug. 4.
"Just after 6 p.m., Irvine Police Detectives interviewed the suspect, 45-year-old Yue Yu, and served a search warrant at the home she shares with the victim," Irvine police said in a statement released last week. "Yu was arrested for poisoning her husband and booked at Orange County Jail."
The filing also alleges a long history of "physical, verbal and emotional" abuse toward Chen and Yu's two children, a boy and girl, ages 7 and 8 respectively.
Chen alleges that Yu humiliated their children, yelled at them, called them names, physically struck them and isolated them from others at school. He also claims that his wife, along with her mother, "minimizes my existence" by making his children feel like they cannot talk to him or spend time with him without getting in trouble.
He added that he also faced a long history of abuse, including similar name-calling and physical violence.
"I ask the Court to issue Domestic Violence Restraining Orders against Emily to protect me and our children," the document concludes, asking for the court to order Yu to stay away from their home, school and extracurriculars, or to grant Chen sole custody of the two children.
NBCLA reached out to Yu's medical office, and was told there would be no comment.
Yu's lawyers could not immediately be reached by NBCLA for comment on the filing.
In a statement provided to the OC Register, Yu's attorney David Wohl said Yu "vehemently and unequivocally denies ever attempting to poison her husband or anyone else. As a well-respected physician her goal as always been to help people and never to harm them."
"We are very concerned that these defamatory, false allegations have been made by (her husband) in an attempt to gain an advantage in the divorce and custody case he filed against Ms. Yu, a day after she was arrested," Wohl said in that statement.
