Child feared mom would kill her after poisoning charge: Docs

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Yue Yu faces charges after allegedly poisoning her husband’s tea with a “Drano-like” liquid, prosecutors said. (Mug shot from Irvine Police Department; screenshot of her in the kitchen courtesy of Steven G. Hittelman of the Hittelman Family Law Group)

The daughter of a California dermatologist facing charges for allegedly poisoning her husband’s tea with a “Drano-like” liquid told a school counselor she feared her mom would kill her if she didn’t lie about it in court, court documents say.

Dr. Yue “Emily” Yu’s 11-year-old daughter, appearing to be distressed and tearful, told her school counselor in a private session last November that she feared if she didn’t lie about what happened, she would make her mom angry, the therapist wrote in court documents.

When the therapist asked why, the girl said, “Because what if she does what she did to my dad to me?”

The counselor then asked, “Are you afraid that your mom would kill you?”

“Yes,” the girl replied, according to court documents.

The allegations surfaced as Yu and her husband, Dr. Jack Chen, are in the middle of a divorce and custody battle.

Yu’s lawyer, David Dworakowski, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Law&Crime. But in court documents, he and his co-counsel said Yu “categorically denies having any violative communications with the children, much less coaching them about facts related to her defense in the criminal matter.”

“Over the past year of Mother’s parenting time, there has not been a scintilla of evidence that Mother, or Grandmother, attempted improper communications with the children,” the document said. “Nothing extraordinary has been seen by the monitors. Additionally, the evidence is that the children enjoy the parenting time spent with Mother, and it is evident that a bond exists between the children and Mother.”

As Law&Crime previously reported, Chen alleged 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.

His suspicions were raised after he was diagnosed with two stomach ulcers, gastritis, and inflammation of his esophagus. He put up a nanny cam in the kitchen, which caught her three times taking the drain cleaner from under the sink and pouring it into his drink, court documents said.

Yu was arrested after Chen reported the incidents to the Irvine Police Department on Aug. 4, 2022. She faces three felony counts of poisoning and one felony count of domestic battery with corporal injury, prosecutors said. Yu was released from jail after posting a $30,000 bond and faces a hearing in the criminal case in May.

Chen alleged years of verbal and physical abuse by Yu and her mother — the children’s grandmother — on their children and him, court documents said.

In court documents, the school therapist wrote that when the daughter came in to see her she described her mother using her phone to type lines for her. In one alleged instance about the drain cleaner used in the house, the daughter “acted out herself and her mom by changing voices,” the documents said.

The daughter said Yu would ask her, “and why did we have Drain-O in the house in the summer?”

Later, the therapist wrote, the daughter said her mother grabbed her by the arm and it hurt. She reported feeling scared to make her mom angry and didn’t know what to do about being asked to lie.

The daughter said when she lived at home with her mother, Yu would keep her up late and wake her up early to study for tests and practice piano.

She also reported her mother would sometimes unscrew the leg of a baby chair that mom would use to “beat” her, court documents said.

Her maternal grandmother told her and her younger brother to come over so she could hit them with the chair leg, documents said.

“If they ran grandma would chase them and beat them,” the documents said.