Man Suspected of Running Down Pedestrian in O.C. Is Jailed

A man suspected of running down and critically injuring a 41-year-old father of three who had shouted at him to slow down in an Orange County parking lot has been arrested.

Morteza Bakhtiari, 26, of Costa Mesa was taken into custody late Friday at his home, 24 hours after hitting John Royston with a BMW at the Aliso Viejo Town Center and fleeing, said Orange County sheriff’s spokesman Jim Amormino.

Bakhtiari tried to escape arrest by reporting his car stolen to Costa Mesa police, Amormino said. The silver BMW was found in Mission Viejo on Friday morning, hours after Royston was struck.

“We went out to [Bakhtiari’s] address, took a report, then contacted the Orange County Sheriff’s Department,” said Sgt. Zack Hoferitza of the Costa Mesa Police Department.

Bakhtiari was being held at Orange County Jail on suspicion of attempted murder. Bail was set at $1 million.

Royston, a former assistant football coach at Santa Margarita High School, remained in extremely critical condition in a medically induced coma Saturday at Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo.

Royston’s wife, Arlene, expressed relief at the arrest. “I’m very pleased, very happy that they apprehended a suspect,” she said in a telephone interview. The couple lives in Aliso Viejo.

“I’m really sick about this,” she said. “It was a senseless incident that should never have happened.”

According to police, Royston and two friends had left a restaurant at the shopping center about 11:30 p.m. Thursday when they saw a silver BMW speeding through the parking lot and running a stop sign.

“The victim and his friends asked him to slow down,” Amormino said, “which was not an unreasonable request.”

Instead, he said, the driver collided with a parked Mercedes-Benz, turned around and continued speeding toward the three men, traveling erratically through the parking lot and spinning around several times before veering toward Royston.

“The victim asked him a second time to slow down, and that’s when he was run down,” Amormino said. “We don’t know what set [the driver] off.... We don’t know whether he was under the influence, [but] there’s no question that it was intentional.... This was not an accident.”

A break in the case came Friday morning when someone walking a dog spotted Bakhtiari’s car parked on a Mission Viejo road and recognized it from newscasts, Amormino said. The car had damage to its front end and windshield. Police traced the registration to Bakhtiari.

A man in his 20s who was a passenger in Bakhtiari’s car turned himself in Friday and was released, Amormino said. “After interviewing him, we felt there was no reason to book him,” he said. The man’s name was not released.

A computer search of California court records shows someone matching Bakhtiari’s name and date of birth has had at least seven criminal or traffic citations or complaints filed against him since 2000, mostly in Orange County. Details of the cases were not immediately available.

Bakhtiari probably will be arraigned Tuesday, Amormino said. Royston’s employer at America’s Choice Finance in Lake Forest, where he is a loan officer, has set up a fund at the Washington Mutual Bank branch on Mission Viejo’s Crown Valley Parkway to accept contributions for Royston’s wife and children.