14 DAY TRIAL // Recent events will most likely have taught any and all IT company officials that the word “bomb” should be avoided just as readily as one would avoid drops in revenue. Mercury News reports that one such official learned this harsh lesson on his own after an alleged bomb joke landed him behind bars. The man in question, namely Yushing Lui, an NVIDIA marketing director, 47 years of age, is now facing charges for a false bomb threat in the San Mateo Superior Court.
According to the prosecutors, the event allegedly took place on Thursday, on a Cathay Pacific Airways plane just before takeoff. A flight attendant was supposedly taking Lui's jacket and asked him if there was anything important in the pockets. Lui supposedly replied saying that he had a bomb, at which point the flight crew immediately called the San Francisco Airport Police. One can only imagine the mixed feelings that were going through the agents dispatched to the scene when they found that there really was no bomb in the jacket's pockets.
Yushing Lui pleaded not guilty to the charges, but was incarcerated either way and was only allowed to leave prison once he paid a $10,000 bail. Judge Beth Freeman denied the motion for release without bail placed by his attorney. During the interrogation, Lui allegedly denied having said anything about a bomb, stating, instead, that all he told the flight attendant was "something to the effect that he did not have a million dollars inside." Still, Chief Deputy District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said that, even if the comment had been intended as a joke, such a remark on board of a plane could lead to prosecution.
Lui comes to work in the Bay Area roughly every six months and he speaks English fluently. This fact rules out any possibility of misunderstanding as a result of language difficulties. The NVIDIA marketing director will stand trial on March 8.