Yue Yu faces charges after allegedly poisoning her husband’s tea with a “Drano-like” liquid, prosecutors said. (Mugshot from Irvine Police Department; screenshot of her in the kitchen courtesy of Steven G. Hittelman of the Hittelman Family Law Group)
A man who says he caught his wife on a nanny cam pouring a “Drano-like” cleaner into his morning tea to try to kill him heaped abuse on him and the couple’s children daily before she was indicted on charges of poisoning and domestic abuse.
In a 2022 court declaration asking a judge in Southern California for custody of the children after the arrest of his wife, Yue “Emily” Yu, Jack Chen, 53, alleged years of abuse by the suspect and the suspect’s mother at their home in Irvine, California, an Orange County suburb, 45 miles south of downtown Los Angeles.
Chen’s attorney, Steven Hittleman, called the allegations insidious.
“She wanted him to suffer,” he told Law&Crime. “This is just another form of domestic violence she used against him.”
Yu’s attorney Scott Simmons told Law&Crime the events surrounding the indictment took place in the context of a troubled marriage, that the kitchen in the family home had an ant problem, and Chen engineered these events to take unfair advantage of his wife in divorce court.
“Jack and Emily commonly used household cleaning products like Drano to combat the ant problem,” he said in a statement. “Jack planted spy cameras to capture Emily pouring Drano into a cup of lemonade. She was doing so in order to bait and kill the ants. But Jack falsely claimed she was doing so in order to poison him. Of course, Drano is a terrible substance to use as a covert poisoning substance because of its strong smell and taste and the immediately catastrophic injuries it causes.
“Jack claimed to have been injured by drinking the Drano. In fact, the medical evidence is inconsistent with Jack having consumed Drano. His so-called injuries are attributable to a benign condition of GERD (gastroesophageal reflux disease). Jack never went to the emergency room for treatment, as one who consumed Drano would do. And instead of calling 911, he called his divorce lawyer.”
Chen summarized the abuse allegations in a domestic violence restraining order seeking custody of the children last year. A judge granted the request and allowed Yu to see the children in supervised visits, Chen’s attorney said, adding that she is free on her own recognizance and can see the children now without supervision.
Chen outlined in court documents his allegation that his wife tried to kill him by poisoning his hot lemonade with drain cleaner after he started noticing a chemical taste in the drink in March and April 2022.
He said he was diagnosed with two stomach ulcers, gastritis, and inflammation of his esophagus.
After his suspicions were raised, he put up a nanny cam that allegedly caught her three times taking the drain cleaner from under the sink and pouring it into his drink, court documents said.
Chen said one video shows him sipping his still-hot lemonade and covering the cup with Saran wrap. His wife then took the drain cleaner from under the sink, removed the plastic wrap from the drink, poured the drain cleaner, replaced the cellophane and put the drain cleaner back.
He reported the incidents on Aug. 4, 2022, to the Irvine Police Department.
Chen said after her arrest, Yu called him from jail to ask him to bail her out, but he refused.
The husband said he first became concerned about his wife’s behavior shortly after their children were born in 2013 and 2014.
Chen alleged that Yu and her mother, who helped take care of the children, were both verbally and emotionally abusive, court documents said.
“Emily would call me a ‘f—— a——‘ and other insults,” court documents said.
Chen alleged that Yu minimized his existence and would use the children to get him to do menial tasks.
“Emily’s parenting, if you could call it that, revolves around yelling, insulting, verbally abusing, hitting, pushing, pulling, and being emotionally abusive,” he alleged. “If our children let Emily know that they enjoyed spending time with me, or showed affection toward me, then Emily would put them in their room and yell at them until they assured her they would not show affection toward me.”
When the mother gets frustrated and yells at the children, she’ll use a Chinese phrase that translates to “Go die!” Chen alleged in court documents.
Documents claimed she also made derogatory comments toward the children, including: “Your head has a problem,” “Your head is sick,” “Go f— yourself,” “f—— idiot,” “stupid a——,” and “Get the f— out of my way.”
While practicing piano for a competition once, the mother allegedly called the couple’s daughter, “f—— stupid!”
Chen also accused Yu of using sleep deprivation to punish the children, the father alleged. He said when the kids fell asleep without her permission, even after 11 p.m., she’d wake them up and demand they go to her room, where she shut the door and made them cry.
“At the end, sometimes she would tell the kids to get out and then slam the door behind them, making them cry outside her door,” the court documents said.
The kids are supposed to put on a “happy face” around their mother and grandmother, court documents said.
The kids are not allowed to have much contact with friends. Yu would pack their schedule so there was no time for socialization or playdates, “isolated in their own little bubble,” he alleged.
“I am ignored and not recognized as a family member,” he wrote in court documents. “When the kids wrote letters to Santa, they excluded my name for fear that Emily would get mad.”
David Dworakowski, Yu’s divorce attorney, told CNN that his client “is innocent of these outrageous charges; she looks forward to presenting her case at trial.” Dworakowski did not return Law&Crime’s request for comment.
Yu was arrested in August and was released from jail after posting a $30,000 bond. She faces three felony counts of poisoning and one felony count of domestic battery with corporal injury, prosecutors said.
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Yue Yu alleged in Drano poisoning abused family: Court docs