By Sue Pascoe
Editor
Babak Rahimzadeh, 54, was arrested for sexual battery after grabbing a victim’s victim’s genital area as she left a class at the Palisades-Malibu YMCA on Via de la Paz on August 26 around 1 p.m.
He was arrested by LAPD Officers Wright and Vassar at 15200 La Cruz, near the Palisades Garden Café, while attempting to flee.
This apparently was not Rahimzadeh’s first offense in Pacific Palisades. It was believed he grabbed a 13-year-old on August 1, and police had been searching for Rahimzadeh ever since. A Los Angeles resident, he does not live in the Palisades.
He was booked the same day as his arrest.
On August 28, Neighborhood Prosecutor Veronica De La Cruz-Robles was asked if Rahimzadeh made bail. “The Sheriff ’s Department website indicates he is in custody,” she said in a return email to the News. “Our office has not received a filing request, but it may go to the District Attorney’s Office first for filing consideration when the detectives conclude their investigation.”
Last March, in a KTLA report, the station reported that “Babak Rahimzadeh is accused of grabbing the victim and sexually battering her last Friday near the third-floor restroom of the Public Affairs Building, according to the UCLA Police Department.”
Rahimzadeh allegedly approached a woman under the guise of asking for directions.
“‘A staff member responded to give him directions, turned away, he followed her and then grabbed her as she walked away,” said Lt. Mark Littlestone with the UCLA Police Department.
Officers recognized Rahimzadeh from a separate incident last year, according to Littlestone.
At the time of the UCLA incident, Rahimzadeh was held on a $25,000 bail and booked into Men’s Central Jail, according to police.
A March 2009 story by City News, reporting on an incident in Toronto, Canada, was headlined: “Man Arrested for Subway Assault May Be Tied to at Least Three Other Victims.”
The man was Rahimzadeh, and he was accused of sexually assaulting at 27-year-old woman at a subway station. When his photograph was released, other victims called the police. Among them were two 16-year-old students from the Rosedale Valley Heights School of the Arts, who were assaulted a month earlier. Rahimzadeh was believed to have committed a similar crime at an apartment complex in town.
“In all four cases, the victims were touched inappropriately by a man who accosted them and then ran away,” the City News story reported.
According to a Daily Bruin article this March, “Rahimzadeh was charged in three sexual assault cases in Toronto in 2009.” Additionally, he was suspected of a sexual battery crime at Berkeley City College.
On August 29, Rahimzadeh was charged with a felony sexual battery and held on $25,000 bail.
If there are any other victims in Pacific Palisades, they should report it to detectives at Operations West Bureau Sex Crimes Unit.
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