Original Article Link: EX-COUNCILMAN BEN KALASHO AND WIFE SENTENCED TO JAIL FOR CONTEMPT OF COURT | East County Magazine
Judge denies couple’s request to delay sentencing, after they claimed air travel was unsafe for Jessica Kalasho due to pregnancy
By Miriam Raftery
August 26, 2023 (San Diego) – Former El Cajon Councilman Bessmon “Ben” Kalasho and his wife, Jessica have been found guilty on four counts each of contempt of court in a civil defamation case won by attorney Lina Charry.
They have been ordered to report to San Diego Superior Court on September 1 to being serving an eight-day jail sentence, as well as pay fines of $1,000 apiece for each count.
The case was filed back in 2017, a year after Kalasho was elected. Originally it was part of a broader defamation case with several other defendants who settled their cases, but Charry refused to settle and ultimately won her case. Kalasho was found by the court to have falsely claimed Charry had sex in public places, in retaliation after she sued him over a vehicle in a carwash he owned crashed into her property next door.
The other plaintiffs included a Miss Middle East beauty pageant contestant who accused Kalasho of superimposing her face on someone else’s nude body in social media posts. Another contestant in the pageant run by Kalasho’s now defunct chamber of commerce claimed he offered trade sex for the crown. A third plaintiff, a taco shop owner who refused to let Kalasho post campaign signs on his property, claimed Kalasho retaliated by posting a fake poll rating the taco shop the worst in El Cajon, but that all the votes were made by aliases Kalasho set up online.
Kalasho resigned in disgrace off the El Cajon Council in 2019, the day after the settlement was announced.
After Charry won her suit and a court ordered the Kalashos to pay damages, she sought to collect the money they owed her by conducting a series of judgement debtor examinations, where the Kalashos were supposed to answer questions on record about their financial assets.
Charry told ECM, “Usually only one of those is necessary. In this case…we had over 15! That is because the Kalashos refused to answer our questions related to their finances, refused to produce account statements they were required to bring,” as well as claiming assets had disappeared or they couldn’t find them.
Exasperated, Charry filed an order asking the court to find the Kalashos criminally guilty of contempt in the civil case, a tool that attorney Charry says is “rarely ,if ever, used” in a civil case. But in this instance, the judge concluded that the Kalashos’ failure to fulfill the requirements of the judgment justified finding them guilty on criminal counts and ordering them both incarcerated.
The Kalashos are currently living in Spruce Pine, North Carolina, according to documents filed by their attorney, Kevin Limieux. Ben Kalasho is working as a chef at Smithmore Castle,(link is external) a bed and breakfast inn there, according to his website(link is external), his Linked in(link is external) page, and an article(link is external) published by Business Insider.
The court originally ordered the Kalashos to surrender to begin their sentence on August 18. However the Kalashos obtained a postponement while the judge considered a motion to to delay serving time until March 2024 because, according to their legal filings, Jessica Kalasho is pregnant and due to deliver in November. Jessica Kalasho submitted a signed declaration from a medical provider, Nancy M. Griffith, advising Mrs. Kalasho to avoid travel until three months after the birth of her child. A filing by the Kalashos’ attorney claimed Jessica would “potentially cause harm to her unborn baby or to herself if she were to engage in a cross country flight at this point in her pregnancy.”
However, Charry submitted evidence that the Kalashos traveled to San Diego in June and July to attend parties.
Judge Kenneth Medel, in an August 24 ex-parte emergency hearing that the Kalashos did not attend in person, ruled against their request to delay their sentence and ordered them to return to San Diego Sept. 1 to begin serving their jail sentence.
He noted that the couple had many prior opportunities through the years to provide the financial documents sought by Charry to enable her to collect on a judgment issued against the couple.
“The message was, ’You will suffer the consequences,’” Judge Medel stated.
This was not Kalasho’s first criminal conviction; he was previously found guilty of a criminal count of workman’s compensation fraud, prior to his election to the El Cajon City Council.
Original Article Link: EX-COUNCILMAN BEN KALASHO AND WIFE SENTENCED TO JAIL FOR CONTEMPT OF COURT | East County Magazine
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