The parents of Suchir Balaji, the former OpenAI researcher who was found dead in his San Francisco apartment in November, have sued the owners and management company of his apartment building, alleging that they concealed evidence and obstructed the investigation into the death.

Poornima Ramarao and Ramamurthy Balaji filed the complaint Sept. 22 in San Francisco Superior Court against Alta Laguna LLC and Holland Partner Group, which managed the Alchemy apartments at 188 Buchanan St., where the 26-year-old died Nov. 26. The couple seeks damages for “emotional distress and other causes of action in an amount of at least $1,000,000.”

The family’s attorney, Phoenix Thottam, did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

Balaji’s parents have disavowed the findings of the city medical examiner’s office, which said he died by suicide from a gunshot wound. Instead, they have promulgated their view that Balaji was killed for criticizing OpenAI. They maintain that there has been a vast effort to conceal his alleged killing that involves tech companies, law enforcement, the news media, and the people who rented an apartment to him.

Balaji lived in the Mint Hill apartment for four years, according to his family and recently signed a lease Oct. 18 for his unit.

The lawsuit claims the defendants fired the apartment manager immediately after he disclosed CCTV footage to Balaji’s parents, installed an exhaust fan in the apartment without notice, and provided only two days of video surveillance footage despite requests for seven days.

The lawsuit alleges that property manager Cory Valenti initially provided the parents access to garage CCTV for a week, then falsely claimed that the cameras were not working.

“Defendants engaged in a pattern of concealment and obstruction that interfered with both the police investigation and Plaintiffs’ private forensic review,” the complaint states.

The lawsuit also alleges that the apartment complex failed to safeguard packages addressed to Balaji that disappeared after his death and may have contained evidence related to his whistleblower claims. A neighbor reportedly saw packages addressed to him in the package room a month after his death that subsequently vanished.

In February, the medical examiner released autopsy results that concluded the death was a suicide, with no evidence of foul play. Balaji’s parents dispute that finding and have retained independent forensic experts who they claim have identified evidence of possible foul play. However, the family declined to release the results of that autopsy.

Balaji became a whistleblower in the months before his death, publicly raising concerns about OpenAI’s use of copyrighted material (opens in new tab) to train its ChatGPT product. 

The nine-count complaint seeks unspecified damages for wrongful death, negligence, fraud, emotional distress, and obstruction of evidence. The parents also seek injunctive relief requiring the defendants to preserve all CCTV footage, maintenance records, and package logs.

Alta Laguna LLC and Holland Partner Group did not respond to requests for comment. A representative for Greystar, which was named in the lawsuit, said Wednesday that the company began managing Alchemy in July and were not affiliated with it before then.

Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated how long Balaji had lived in the Buchanan Street apartment.