Persian ‘hot babe’ awarded cash, Mercedes
By DAVE DANFORTH Daily Press Staff Writer
For many defendants, it’s a pipe dream to strike back in court and win.
But that dream came up smoking for Afsaneh Mobasser, 36, on Friday, when a Santa Monica jury found her countersuit more believeable than her former husband’s initial legal salvo and lifted her to victory. Jurors decided her ex-husband had abused her, left her with a sexually transmitted disease, and tried inappropriately to win back a Mercedes he never drove.
It will be of little solace to Bahram Anav, 42, the suitor in a marriage that lasted two weeks in 1996, to learn that one of the 12 jurors wasn’t convinced he’d infected her, or that only nine of the 12 were certain the car and some $19,000-plus in cash he gave her were gifts.
The case provided a rare glimpse into Persian-Jewish The six-man, six-woman jury awarded Mobasser $210,000 on her claim of sexual abuse, $70,000 of it in damages for “fraud, malice, or oppression.”
It appeared Mobasser might never have publicly discussed the first night she slept with Anav — an experience she termed a rape — had he not sued her first, seeking the return of the Mercedes and cash.
“I had to marry Mr. Anav because he took my virginity,” she told the jury, portraying herself as damaged goods and far less likely to marry, 60 pounds heavier, unable to achieve intimacy, and subject to frequent bouts of crying and depression.
Anav claimed she had improperly kept the gifts given in anticipation of a marriage that lasted a mere fortnight and was annulled the following year.
The pair met in late 1996 through a blind date arranged by relatives. Anav testified he fell completely for Mobasser, then 31, who felt good enough about her own looks to label her license plate “TIKEH” — ‘hot babe,’ or ‘quite a piece’ in Persian.
Mobasser said she harbored doubts about Anav. She testified he wasn’t attractive to her and didn’t turn her on.
Anav handled the rejection after their first date by stepping up his efforts. He said their bedding together after a month and a half of dating was mutual. But she claimed she was lured into his apartment to fix his computer, then raped.
“Now you have to marry me. I’m positive I’ve made you pregnant,” she said he told her later.
Complicating matters, Mobasser’s mother, who arrived in the U.S. from Tehran in 1996 twelve years after she had, didn’t think Anav had the means to marry.
Anav claimed the marriage broke up not because of any rape, but because of Mobasser’s mother.
While the daughter had been “Americanized” through 12 years in the U.S., which included training as an electrical engineer at Santa Monica College and UCLA, her mother was much more conservative, both agreed. Anav claimed the mother broke up the marriage by competing for her daughter’s time and affection and claiming Anav wasn’t good enough for her.
“I would have preferred to marry someone with more income,” Mobasser told the jury after Anav testified his real income was only about $25,000 annually. Further, Persian Jewish tradition suggests a groom not marry until he is well established.
But she said he promised to be a good husband to her, and claimed a cash income of in excess of $100,000 annually — a figure bolstered by his bank records.
The Mercedes, which still bears the “TIKEH” plates, was a central focus of Anav’s case. Both agreed he paid $17,171 for the car, never drove it nor even had the keys, and had the title put in both their names. When he filed for divorce from Mobasser in December 1996, he didn’t list it as a debt to be paid for, her lawyer pointed out. Mobasser made 58 out of the 60 payments on the car, totalling over $42,000.
Testimony established that they spent nights together but their days apart.
“Her world is in castes,” Anav’s lawyer, Louis Dell told the jury, suggesting cold-hearted materialism. “It’s not a racism, but equally repugnant.”
Mobasser’s lawyer, Derek Tabone, told jurors that the gifts of money and jewelry Mobasser came to expect were standard in Persian Jewish tradition, and so was the expectation that she marry the man who took her virginity.
“Her values defined her reality,” he said, adding that expert testimony had established a long tradition of abused women who won’t admit it.
Anav appeared to hurt his own case with a spotty memory about his money. Bank records showed he spent $122,000 in 1996, took in over $86,000 in 1997, and spent $368,000 in 1998. Anav said he remembered little about his financial transactions, “even last week.” Nor would he describe a business he ran with his brother in Van Nuys beyond sales of “general merchandise.”
While Anav’s lawyer ridiculed the notion that Mobasser would marry her rapist, the jurors apparently accepted her testimony that she had few other options, though the relationship was marked by repeated sexual abuse. They rejected Dell’s characterization of a consenting relationship, in which “having sex often and frequently during your honeymoon shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.” The marriage ended two weeks after the honeymoon, with Anav suing for divorce the following month.
When jurors arrived for Tabone’s last argument Friday, they found Mobasser’s wedding photo perched on the witness stand. Tabone asked them to consider how she had gone from the “TIKEH” in the portrait to the woman she is now — capable by education of making $4,500 monthly, but instead overweight and on disability. He suggested jurors award her three years’ worth of lost income.
It was a suggestion with which they apparently agreed. They appeared to feel Dell’s arguments about her Persian materialism were overblown in a case about a West Los Angeles relationship.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 12, 2002. Read the original PDF.