David Xu asked an Alameda County judge to dismiss the felony in the cadmium poisoning of Rong Yuan.

A petition to dismiss a felony after probation is a request to change the record of a case that already ended in a no-contest plea. It is not a new trial, and it is not, on these pages, a ruling. The Standard reported Judge Kimberly Colwell called the 2024 deal extremely generous and set probation at two years. Fox News reported the district attorney objects, and that California law tells a judge to grant the request when probation conditions are met. The Monday outcome is not in either story.

Fox News reported Monday, Oct. 12, 2026, that Rong Yuan is releasing hidden-camera video as David Xu asks an Alameda County judge to dismiss his felony conviction for poisoning her. The station, citing prosecutors, reported Xu had been a senior materials engineer at Berkeley Engineering and Research and poisoned Yuan's food and water with cadmium, a toxic heavy metal, for more than a year from 2017 to 2019. Fox News reported the charges included premeditated attempted murder and two felony counts of poisoning, and that, according to the San Francisco Standard, he pleaded no contest to one count of poisoning after a deal that started at one year of probation. Fox News reported that at the 2024 sentencing the judge made the probation two years and called the deal "extremely generous, considering everything in this case."

The Standard, on Oct. 10, is the story that names the judge and the calendar. Anya Schultz wrote that exclusive. It reported Judge Kimberly Colwell, at the March 2024 sentencing, doubled the negotiated one year of probation to two years, credited Xu with one day in jail, ordered him to stay away from Yuan and her parents, and used that "extremely generous" line. It reported Xu pleaded no contest in September 2023, under District Attorney Pamela Price's office, to a single poisoning count, and that a no-contest plea carries the weight of a conviction without admitting the underlying facts. The Standard reported the court ordered $7,058 in restitution after Yuan sought nearly $500,000. It reported he completed probation in March. Fox News also reported he finished probation in March. The Standard dated the two-year term to the March 2024 sentencing. Fox News reported he is asking for the conviction to be expunged and that it would still remain on his record. A video caption on the Fox News story calls him 34. The Standard calls him 41. Those ages are both in the coverage.

What the camera showed is Yuan's account and the footage the outlets describe. The Standard reported she hid a spy camera at her desk, that a Feb. 11, 2019 clip shows Xu at 11:04 a.m. reaching toward where her water bottle sat, and that a March 4, 2019 clip shows him pouring something from a small white container into the bottle. Fox News reported the same two clips. The Standard, citing a Berkeley police report, reported Xu put cadmium in her food and water on multiple occasions for over a year. The paper reported it reviewed a lab report on the bottle samples, and that those samples tested at up to 3.5 million times the federal drinking-water limit. Police said Yuan's blood and her parents' blood also tested positive for cadmium, the Standard reported. Fox News reported she told the Standard the video was her "last resort."

The hearing those stories describe had not been given a result in the copy used here. The Standard reported the petition would be heard Monday at 9 a.m. in Department 109 of Alameda County Superior Court, that the district attorney's office has objected, and that court records show the office is contesting it. Fox News, writing Monday, reported the district attorney objected and that California law requires a judge to grant the request if the defendant met the conditions of probation. The Standard reported state law entitles someone who completes every probation condition to that dismissal, and that appellate courts have held a judge cannot deny it unless the crime is on a short exclusion list, which the paper said does not include poisoning. The Standard also reported a dismissal would not wipe the arrest and conviction from what law enforcement can see. Fox News's Monday story still describes the request as pending. It does not say the petition was granted or refused.

The Standard reported Yuan is 50, that she has long-term health effects and cannot work full time, and that she planned to attend Monday under Marsy's Law. Fox News reported it contacted Xu's attorney for comment. Xu did not respond to the Standard. The Monday request is a petition after a no-contest plea, not a new trial. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.