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A billionaire chip-equipment supplier and his wife who are suing the city of Los Angeles stemming from the 2023 death of their mentally disabled 18-year-old daughter are asking a judge to approve service by text message on a man alleged to have sexually assaulted and strangled the girl in Van Nuys.
Ali Salehpour and Suzanne Salehpour are the plaintiffs in the Van Nuys Superior Court lawsuit.
On Thursday, their attorneys filed court papers with Judge Lee S. Arian stating that months of attempts to personally serve Steven Hernandez had failed and they believe a March 28 conversation between John Romero, the director of investigations at Black Box Security Inc., working on behalf of the plaintiffs, and a man Romero believes to have been Hernandez established that he had received the lawsuit and summons in PDF format via text message.
In a sworn declaration, Romero says he received a call back from a man who made the following response:
“I have nothing to get sued for. I have nothing. Well, I’m homeless now so I don’t know what to tell you people. I have nothing now because of what happened. I lost my freedom my car my truck my scooter my tools for working my clothes, my best friend, my dogs, my trailer. I’m struggling to survive if that’s what they wanted. I did nothing wrong.”
Romero further says that based on the content and context of the exchange, especially the man’s “detailed and personal references to the underlying events,” he believes he spoke to Hernandez.
A hearing on the request for an order permitting alternative service is scheduled Dec. 28.
The Salehpours also are suing Rising Roads Recovery Services LLC and Saddleback Recovery. A forensic autopsy by Dr. William Smock concluded that their daughter’s death was a homicide by strangulation, accompanied by injuries from sexual assault and trauma to her head and neck.
The Salehpours allege their daughter was negligently allowed to check herself out of Saddleback, a subcontractor of Rising Roads, and that due to Los Angeles Police Department negligence, she was later found dead in the garage of a Van Nuys home, where her parents believed she was being groomed for sex work.
But the City Attorney’s Office maintains the city has immunity in the case and had no duty to Amelia Salehpour.
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“There is no right to police services, a governmental investigation or a particular type of police investigation,” lawyers for the City Attorney’s Office state in their court papers.
Because the city has immunity from the parents’ claims, their thrice-amended lawsuit “fails as a matter of law,” according to the City Attorney’s Office’s court papers.
A “special relationship” exists in the law between the police and an individual creating a duty to avoid being negligent only exists in the law when officers make specific promises to undertake a particular action and fail to do so, where the police do something to increase an individual’s peril or where the officers lull the person into a false sense of security, according to the City Attorney’s Office’s court papers.
In addition, allegations of an unlawful police response, a failure to investigate at all, a failure to classify a death in a certain manner, a failure to identify a crime and a failure to conduct any administrative investigations and/or impose discipline are not claims that can be adjudicated in a California court, lawyers for the city further contend in their pleadings.
According to the couple’s lawsuit, from July 22-26, 2023, Amelia Salehpour was taken from Rising Roads, a Costa Mesa licensed treatment facility, to Saddleback Recovery. Within 72 hours, she was beaten, raped and killed more than 60 miles away at a Los Angeles residence known as a hub for narcotics sales and both human- and gun trafficking and where she had been taken by a gang member after discharging herself from Saddleback, the suit states.
The home was frequented by gang members, sexual deviants, drug users and drug and assault weapon dealers, the suit alleges.
Days before Amelia Salehpour’s arrival at the home, the LAPD went to a distress call there and found and rescued a young woman being held hostage inside, yet despite those circumstances and the allegedly overwhelming evidence suggesting foul play and human trafficking of the plaintiffs’ daughter, the LAPD and medical examiners determined she died of an accidental drug overdose, the suit states.
Although Amelia Salehpour was an adult at the time, she had an eighth-grade education level, according to the suit, which further states a private autopsy revealed Amelia Salehpour suffered sexual assault and blunt trauma to the head and other extremities.
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Parents Ask Judge to Approve Text Message Service for Deceased Daughter – MyNewsLA.com
