By Jacqueline Lee

Daily News Staff Writer

PALO ALTO — A judge has placed a former Stanford University student who tried to poison some classmates with paraformaldehyde on three years’ probation and allowed her to work off her jail sentence.

Xiangyu Ouyang pleaded no contest in December to four felony counts of poisoning.

According to court documents, Ouyang put the chemical into the water bottles of several classmates in 2014 in the Nusse Lab, where she was a researcher; one victim had a serious adverse reaction.

Ouyang, 26, of Singapore, also put the chemical in her own water bottle and drank it, court documents state.

Ouyang’s attorney, Jeffrey Hayden, said Monday by phone that the court’s decision balanced public safety to the ultimate extent possible with Ouyang’s own safety.

“I think the court struck the appropriate balance,” Hayden said. “Ultimately, Judge (Vincent) Chiariello recognized, as did the prosecution for that matter, that resolving this as a jail sentence was counterproductive. It wouldn’t make anyone safe and it’s not a good thing for any of us to separate her from the treatment she needs.”

Ouyang told police at the time that she was “psychologically unstable, depressed, stressed and very dizzy” and that “sometimes the dizziness caused her to not be fully conscious of what she was doing,” according to court documents.

Before the incident, Ouyang said she stopped taking her prescribed antidepressants because they worsened her headaches.

Both prosecution and defense attorneys said in weeks leading up to the sentencing that they were open to options other than hard time: Ouyang faced up to a year in Santa Clara County jail.

Deputy District Attorney Anne Seery, who could not be reached Monday, said in December that she was open to alternatives because Ouyang’s “conduct is so unusual.”

Judge Chiariello on Friday sentenced Ouyang to three years’ of probation, during which time she must receive mental health treatment. He also ordered her to pay restitution and to not make any contact with the victims or get closer than 30 feet of Stanford property.

Under the probation terms, she must either spend 180 days in county jail with credit for four days served or participate in the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s weekend work program. By choosing the latter, Ouyang had her sentence cut in half and must now spend the equivalent of 88 days of eight-hour shifts doing service work such as picking up trash.

Stanford previously expelled the graduate student and banned her from university property. She also lost her student visa.

Hayden added Ouyang is “very remorseful.”

“She feels very badly with what happened,” Hayden said. “She’s in far better shape than when the incident occurred. But it’s really a sad case; people got hurt. From my perspective, there’s no winners.”

Reporter Jason Green contributed to this article. Email Jacqueline Lee at jlee1@dailynewsgroup.com or call her at 650-391-1334; follow her at twitter.com/jleenews.