Holly MatkinLos Angeles, CA – A Los Angeles woman whose ex-husband is accused of hiring a hitman to either kill or permanently injure her is speaking out against Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon for allegedly undercharging the case.
According to investigators, Khosrow Gharib didn’t know the hitman he hired to attack his estranged wife, Bahar Danesh, was actually an undercover Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officer, KTTV reported.
The couple, who had been married for eight years, was at the tail-end of a bitter 12-year divorce settlement when Gharib began speaking with the supposed hitman.
Their conversations were captured in video and audio recordings over a one-month period, Danesh’s attorney, Tracy Green, told KTTV.
“He [Gharib] said, ‘I want you to break 100 bones in her body, from her feet to her hands, rearrange the face, break the spine,’” Green said. “And then when the hitman said, ‘What? Paralyze her?’ He said, ‘No, the lower spine,’ and he went into detail about what bone or where you break in the spine and focus on the lower spine.”
The supposed hitman allegedly told Gharib he was concerned his instructions were too specific to realistically carry out, according to Green.
“The hitman says, ‘I can’t play God, what do I do, do this for a half an hour, break all these bones and then say, please don’t die? I’m not God,’” the attorney recounted. “He [Gharib] responded, ‘Well, if she dies, s–t happens, sort of, I’m ok with that.’”
According to investigators, Gharib offered to pay the supposed hitman $20,000 to kill Danesh or $15,000 to leave her with permanent injuries, KTTV reported.
He allegedly offered to kick in another $20,000 if the hitman could pull off killing Danesh’s brother, too.
According to court transcripts, “the defendant keeps telling the hitman, ‘if you need to eliminate her, go ahead, what else can we do? If the brother becomes a problem, you can eliminate him too,’” KTTV reported.
“If you do a good job, I have other jobs for you,” Gharib allegedly added, according to the court records.
Gharib was arrested immediately after he gave the undercover officer a $1,000 down payment.
But detectives soon called Green and Danesh to let them know Gascon had charged Gharib with a far lesser offense than expected, KTTV reported.
“Bahar and I both got phone calls from the detective saying, ‘Bad news, you know what the situation is with the Gascon’s office right now…they booked this as a solicitation to commit assault,'” Green told the news outlet.
If convicted of the charge against him, Gharib could be placed on probation.
At most, he could be sentenced to three years and eight months in prison.
Gascon later issued a statement claiming there “was insufficient evidence to prove solicitation for murder because the defendant specifically instructed not to kill the intended victim,” KTTV reported.
Green argued Gascon’s reasoning is simply inaccurate.
“When you offer $15,000 to someone to go and spend a half an hour breaking 100 bones in the body – which sounds like torture out of some crazy Tarantino movie – or you offer them $20,000 to just kill someone, what’s the hitman going to take?” she asked KTTV.
Green said she completely supports criminal justice reform, but said Gascon has gone too far with regards to her client’s case.
“My concern is that the pendulum swings so far to the other side it will actually hurt criminal justice reform,” she told KTTV.
Bahar said that if prosecutors fail to hold her ex-husband accountable now, it could create deadly consequences for her in the future.
“Would you let someone like that just out there, free on probation?” she asked KTTV. “Maybe just because it’s his first time? By the time it’s his second time, I’ll be dead.”
