Six months after Bessmon “Ben” Kalasho scored a surprise win in his 2016 campaign for El Cajon City Council, the political newcomer was named in a lawsuit accusing him of rigging the results of a beauty pageant after one of the contestants refused his sexual advance.
The first-term council member denied the accusation, along with allegations that he and his wife, Jessica, created fake social media profiles that were used to attack people and businesses who had rubbed the couple the wrong way.
The legal claims sparked a years-long odyssey that continues to this day.
Ben and Jessica Kalasho are due in San Diego Superior Court on Thursday, when they and their new lawyers will try to convince a judge not to lock them up for contempt of court.
Kalasho’s once-promising political career crashed in 2019, when he resigned midterm amid complaints from colleagues about his behavior at council meetings and unrelated claims that he took money from companies with business interests before the city.
At the same time, Kalasho and his wife have been ordered to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in judgments and fees to all but one of the 2017 plaintiffs. But so far they have not made any payments, and they have moved assets and chosen to relocate out of state.
“My goal was to get (them) at least one day in jail,” said San Diego attorney Lina Charry, the only plaintiff remaining in the case. Charry has refused to settle her defamation claims because she said the Kalashos have thumbed their noses at the judicial system for years, even lying to the court.
“If I could get them in handcuffs, with mugshots, in orange jumpsuits and a record, that was all I needed,” Charry said.
Kalasho could not be reached for comment. He did not respond to an email request, and his new lawyer declined to answer questions about his clients.
In a filing earlier this month, however, his attorney Kevin Lemieux requested that the eight-day jail handed to the Kalashos be pushed back until next year, because Jessica is expecting a baby this fall.
“Jessica is currently 25 weeks pregnant, with an estimated due date of November 18, 2023,” Lemieux wrote to the court. “Her doctor has advised her not to travel at this time, and for three months following the birth.”
The Kalasho’s lawyer said his clients now live in North Carolina. He submitted a declaration from Jessica Kalasho to the court dated July 31 attesting that she lives in Spruce Pine, N.C., and was about 25 weeks pregnant.
But the sworn declaration was signed three days after Judge Kenneth Medel ordered Ben and Jessica Kalasho each to pay $1,000 and serve eight days in San Diego County jail.
The contempt charges came after the Kalashos failed to appear in person at a May hearing as requested.
Instead, they appeared remotely and told the judge they had moved across the country and were unable to travel because Jessica was due to give birth soon.
On successive weekends in June, however, the husband and wife were seen — and videotaped and photographed — at separate weddings in San Diego County, court records show.
Charry said the couple’s behavior was similar to what she has seen for the past six years.
“The Kalashos did to this court what they have been doing to me in the case for years,” she told the judge. “Without any regard for the superiority of this court, without any hesitation, without any respect, they lied to you. They did not even flinch while doing so.”
On the same day Medel found the Kalashos guilty of contempt, he granted requests from the couple’s two lawyers to be released from the case.
Doctored photos
One of the more salacious claims in the 2017 lawsuit charged the Kalashos with copying and pasting the face of the reigning Miss Middle East onto photographs of naked women, then posting the doctored images online.
Plaintiff Zhala Tawfiq said that the couple was seeking to discredit her because she had publicly questioned the legitimacy of the beauty pageant, a then-annual event that Kalasho created and owned, after Kalasho failed to pay the $2,000 in prize money or meet of a related promotional contract.
The beauty queen was quickly stripped of her crown.
Another plaintiff was contestant Paris Kargar, who said that Kalasho had offered to make sure she would win the Miss Middle East title if she agreed to sex with him the night before the 2016 pageant.
“You stay here tonight with me and you win tomorrow,” the lawsuit quotes Kalasho as telling her.
The legal complaint also accused the El Cajon City Council member of using fake social media s to criticize the food at a restaurant whose owners had earlier refused to post a Kalasho campaign sign.
Owners of the 3 Brothers taco shop alleged that the Middle Eastern Chamber of Commerce, a business group founded by Kalasho and run by his wife, posted a poll seeking solicitations for the best Mexican eatery.
“On October 17, 2016, the chamber publicly posted a large graphic with the alleged results of their 48-hour poll, ranked 15 restaurants and proclaimed 3 Brothers ‘the worst Mexican food in El Cajon,’” the complaint said.
Kalasho also was accused of posting comments from a fake social-media criticizing the food at 3 Brothers, which was doing business as Tres Taqueria, the lawsuit also stated.
“I ate at Tres and got really sick,” an by the name Robert Forbes posted on the chamber Facebook page.
Charry also said she was targeted by some of the same social-media profiles that attacked Zawfiq and the 3 Brothers taco shop. The allegations against her turned up online after she had won prior legal judgments against Kalasho.
Like the taco shop, Charry claimed in the lawsuit that she was singled out in a bogus poll as the worst lawyer in San Diego County.
The legal complaint also asserted that the Kalashos were behind online postings that falsely said the San Diego lawyer had engaged in a public sex act.
“The Kalashos utilized their fake profile Mr. ‘George’ to further defame Charry by posting that she was seen performing fellatio in public,” the 2017 lawsuit said.
Back in 2017, the defendants declined to comment to The San Diego Union-Tribune. But Kalasho told the San Diego Reader that the allegations in the fraud and defamation case would be easily disproved.
“We will protect our brand and reputation at all costs and will not yield to publicity stunts and erroneous allegations,” he told the weekly news organization at the time.
‘Quit fooling around’
The civil allegations leveled against Kalasho and his wife were not as easily disproved as the El Cajon council member predicted.
Kalasho countersued the plaintiffs, but that claim was dismissed within months.
The original case dragged on for years as Charry and other plaintiffs struggled to get the Kalashos to appear in court. The defendants also cycled through multiple lawyers, which also contributed to delays.
In August 2018, a different judge onished Ben Kalasho from the bench for failing to cooperate with the plaintiffs’ lawyers.
“How would you like to spend the weekend in jail?” Judge Timothy Taylor asked the council member. “If you don’t quit fooling around, I’m going to have you placed in custody. … Sir, you are a public official elected by the people of El Cajon. You’re treating this like a game.”
Two weeks later, Taylor issued an arrest warrant for Jessica Kalasho after she failed to appear for a scheduled hearing.
Taylor recused himself from the case the following month, saying he reached the decision “after a long weekend of reflection.” The decision helped push the trial, then scheduled for November 2018, into the next year.
Kalasho had other issues unrelated to the civil litigation.
After reporting on the fraud and defamation lawsuit, the Union-Tribune disclosed that the nonprofit beauty pageant Kalasho hosted for three years was never properly licensed by state regulators.
It had initially been produced by the San Diego East County Chaldean American Chamber of Commerce, a trade group that represented small businesses across the Cajon Valley until it was suspended by the California Franchise Tax Board in 2016.
Kalasho subsequently incorporated Miss Middle East Beauty Pageant USA to “provide scholarship money for Middle Eastern women for competing in beauty pageants,” state records he filed in 2017 asserted.
But state officials subsequently suspended Miss Middle East Beauty Pageant USA.
Later in 2017, the Union-Tribune found that Kalasho had been soliciting donations to his for-profit business group from companies with business interests before the El Cajon City Council.
The El Cajon city attorney said he learned about the donations after being asked about them by the newspaper. He quickly scheduled new votes on those council matters in which Kalasho had participated.
By 2018, about the same time Kalasho was scolded by Judge Taylor for his response to the civil litigation, residents of El Cajon began suggesting he resign.
Kalasho was repeatedly accused of scrolling through his cell phone during council business. Besides that, a reporter for East County Magazine testified in open session that Kalasho had publicly threatened him for doing his job.
“You openly incited your Facebook followers to come harass me, stalk me and to kill me with a .357 caliber bullet,” said the reporter, Paul Kruze. “Simply put, Ben, you are a coward. You truly are the biggest coward I have met in my life.”
In the fall of 2018, Kalasho was twice reported to El Cajon police for allegedly threatening people.
Late that same year, the El Cajon City Council voted 4-0 to sue Kalasho for allegedly using city resources for personal and political gain. The council also sought and received an injunction ordering Kalasho to stop the unlawful use of the city logo on campaign materials.
“Once you’ve been warned so many times, there’s nothing left but to get legal systems involved,” Mayor Bill Wells said at the time.
Kalasho resigned from office March 25, 2019, saying in his letter to the city manager that “I felt I was constantly battling my colleagues” and “some important family matters have risen whereby my future time is very limited.”
More delays
On the same day he walked away from the El Cajon City Council, Kalasho agreed to a settlement with three of the four plaintiffs in the fraud and defamation case.
It was a confidential agreement.
But in early 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic upended the nation, the deal became a matter of public record after a judge approved a $300,000 judgment against Kalasho and his wife.
The money was supposed to be split by Tawfiq, Karger and the 3 Brothers taco shop owners.
But lawyer Jimmie Parker said this week that he has yet to recover any cash for his clients from Kalasho, largely due to real estate and other transactions that moved many of the former council member’s personal assets.
“Enforcing the judgment against Mr. Kalasho has proven to be time-consuming, requiring additional ancillary litigation over a dispute regarding ownership of a home in Santee that Mr. Kalasho holds recorded title to,” Parker said.
In his July 28 order, Medel directed Ben and Jessica Kalasho to report to court on the afternoon of Aug. 18 — and expect to serve out their jail term.
But after their last lawyers were dismissed, the Kalashos hired Lemieux and were able to push back the required appearance to Thursday morning. Medel is out of town, and the case will now be heard by Judge Eddie Sturgeon.
Charry said she would not be surprised to see the defendants avoid jail time once again.
“These are the Kalashos,” Charry said. “They believe they are above the law. They believe they are invincible. They believe the rules do not apply to them.”
Lemieux did not respond to a request for comment on the video and photo evidence.
