Man files lawsuit claiming he was wrongfully accused of sexual battery
A man who says he was wrongfully accused of groping another man’s genitals in the locker room of a 24 Hour Fitness in Glendale is suing the city and the Glendale Police Department, as well as the gym, for negligence, false arrest and defamation, records show.
Vahe Ambarsoomzadeh argued that police failed to conduct a proper investigation and independently review surveillance video that would have exonerated him, and instead relied on a gym worker who falsely identified him as a suspect, according to the Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit, which was recently moved to federal court.
Glendale City Atty. Mike Garcia on Wednesday denied the claims.
“The city is going to defend the lawsuit,” he said. “We don’t think what they’ve said we’ve done constitutes any legal liability for the city, and we deny that the arrest was false.”
A representative of 24 Hour Fitness said the company does not comment on pending litigation.
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One evening in February of last year, a gym-goer reported to the front desk at a 24 Hour Fitness in Glendale that about half an hour earlier, a man who was 6 feet 2, wearing a towel, yellow/white flip-flops and two earrings in one ear followed him into the shower room, asked for help turning on the shower and groped the victim’s genitals, according to the lawsuit.
Ambarsoomzadeh, a 27-year-old attorney who filed the lawsuit, argued in the complaint that he did not match that detailed description — he’s “nowhere near” 6 feet 2, wasn’t wearing yellow/white flip flops and doesn’t have his ears pierced — and surveillance footage shows that he was not in the men’s locker room at the time of the alleged crime.
“Despite the mountain of exculpatory evidence,” Ambarsoomzadeh was arrested the following month and charged with one misdemeanor count of sexual battery, the lawsuit states. The charge was later dismissed, according to the Los Angeles district attorney’s office.
Reasonable training and supervision, the lawsuit claims, would have led to Ambarsoomzadeh’s exoneration.
Ambarsoomzadeh’s attorney was unavailable for comment.
“He was interrogated by the police, who, without so much as reviewing surveillance video, ignored his pleas and protestations of innocence,” the lawsuit states.
According to the lawsuit, the gym’s loss-prevention manager sent Glendale police a screen shot of the surveillance footage of a suspect leaving the gym that evening. The manager allegedly misidentified that person as Ambarsoomzadeh.
When reached Wednesday, Garcia did not know if someone else was arrested in connection with the battery.
Surveillance footage showed that Ambarsoomzadeh actually left the gym 15 minutes later, according to the lawsuit.
Three Glendale police officers, along with the gym’s loss-prevention manager, are also named as defendants in the complaint.
Glendale city attorneys filed a motion to dismiss the case. A hearing on the motion is slated for next month.
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Alene Tchekmedyian, alene.tchekmedyian@latimes.com
Twitter: @atchek
