{"id":182566,"date":"2026-02-18T06:31:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T06:31:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/182566\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T06:31:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T06:31:12","slug":"california-high-speed-rail-authority-ceo-on-leave-after-arrest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/182566\/","title":{"rendered":"California High-Speed Rail Authority CEO on leave after arrest"},"content":{"rendered":"

California High-Speed Rail Authority’s Chief Executive Officer is taking a leave of absence following his domestic battery-related arrest<\/a>, according to officials<\/p>\n

The project’s board of directors and state transportation agency will review the situation surrounding CEO Ian Chodri’s arrest while he’s on leave, officials said.<\/p>\n

“While CEO Choudri has informed the California High-Speed Rail Authority Board that he is not aware of any evidence of wrongdoing, he has voluntarily agreed to take a temporary leave to allow the Board and our parent agency, the California State Transportation Agency, to fully review and assess the situation,” said Peter Whippy, the Chief of External Affairs and Communications for the California High-Speed Rail Authority. “We are taking this matter seriously, consistent with our longstanding commitment to public responsibility, transparency, and accountability. The California High-Speed Rail Authority\u2019s work continues without interruption, and our priorities remain unchanged.\u201d<\/p>\n

Officials told ABC10 that Chief of Staff Mark Tollefson will assume responsibility for day-to-day decision making of the authority during the temporary period.<\/p>\n

The Folsom Police Department said Choudri’s arrest happened on Feb. 4 on the 500 block of Borges Court in Folsom. They added that the violaiton is a misdemeanor.<\/p>\n

The Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office didn’t file charges after receiving the incident report from Folsom police, according to Allen Sawyer, Choudri’s attorney.<\/p>\n

The District Attorney’s Office also reportedly declined to file charges against Choudri’s wife, Lyudmila Starostyuk.<\/p>\n

The Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office gave the following statement:<\/p>\n

Our office takes all allegations of domestic violence incredibly seriously, regardless of who the suspect is or what position they hold in our community. Per penal code section 13701, in domestic violence situations law enforcement shall take steps to determine who the \u201cdominant aggressor\u201d is to make the appropriate arrest. \u00a0In this case, law enforcement arrested one male and one female. \u00a0Officers did not see or note any injuries to either individual.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Since the evidence does not clearly demonstrate a \u201cdominant aggressor\u201d we determined there was insufficient evidence to file charges to sustain our burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.<\/p>\n

Choudri was appointed by the Authority’s Board of Directors in August 2024.<\/p>\n

According to the Authority’s website<\/a>, before joining the Authority, Choudri had an extensive career working on construction projects related to rail, telecommunications, highways, energy, defense, airports and seaports.<\/p>\n

WATCH MORE ON ABC10 | Lawmakers raise transparency concerns after $537M high-speed rail settlement approved<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"California High-Speed Rail Authority’s Chief Executive Officer is taking a leave of absence following his domestic battery-related arrest,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83358,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,52317,8,86394,22321,52969,86391,86393,86392],"class_list":["post-182566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-high-speed-rail","tag-california-news","tag-ceo-choudri","tag-chief-executive-officer","tag-folsom-police-department","tag-leave-of-absence","tag-sacramento-county-district-attorney39s-office","tag-state-transportation-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182566\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}