{"id":10027,"date":"2023-09-05T10:46:26","date_gmt":"2023-09-05T17:46:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/?p=10027"},"modified":"2023-09-06T11:16:05","modified_gmt":"2023-09-06T18:16:05","slug":"ex-councilman-ben-kalasho-and-wife-sentenced-to-jail-for-contempt-of-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/?p=10027","title":{"rendered":"EX-COUNCILMAN BEN KALASHO AND WIFE SENTENCED TO JAIL FOR CONTEMPT OF COURT"},"content":{"rendered":"

Original Article Link: EX-COUNCILMAN BEN KALASHO AND WIFE SENTENCED TO JAIL FOR CONTEMPT OF COURT | East County Magazine<\/a><\/p>\n

Judge denies couple\u2019s request to delay sentencing, after they claimed air travel was unsafe for Jessica Kalasho due to pregnancy<\/strong><\/p>\n

By Miriam Raftery<\/p>\n

August 26, 2023\u00a0 (San Diego) \u2013 Former El Cajon Councilman Bessmon\u00a0 \u201cBen\u201d Kalasho and his wife, Jessica have been found\u00a0guilty<\/a>\u00a0on four counts each of contempt of court in a civil defamation case won by attorney Lina Charry.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0settled<\/a>\u00a0their cases, but Charry refused to settle and ultimately won her case.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

The other plaintiffs included a Miss Middle East beauty pageant contestant who accused Kalasho of superimposing her face on someone else\u2019s nude body in social media posts.\u00a0 Another contestant in the pageant run by Kalasho\u2019s now defunct chamber of commerce claimed he offered trade sex for the crown.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Kalasho\u00a0resigned<\/a>\u00a0in disgrace off the El Cajon Council in 2019, the day after the settlement was announced.<\/p>\n

After Charry \u00a0won 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.<\/p>\n

Charry told\u00a0 ECM,\u00a0 \u201cUsually only one of those is necessary. In this case\u2026we 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,\u201d\u00a0 as well as claiming assets had disappeared or they couldn\u2019t find them.<\/p>\n

Exasperated,\u00a0 Charry filed an order asking the court to find the Kalashos criminally guilty of contempt\u00a0 in the civil case, a tool that attorney Charry says is \u201crarely ,if ever, used\u201d in a civil case. But in this instance, the judge concluded that the Kalashos\u2019 failure to fulfill the requirements of the judgment justified finding them\u00a0 guilty on criminal counts and ordering them both incarcerated.<\/p>\n

The Kalashos are currently living in Spruce\u00a0 Pine, North Carolina, according to documents filed by their attorney, Kevin Limieux. \u00a0Ben Kalasho is working as a chef at\u00a0Smithmore Castle,(link is external)<\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0a bed and breakfast inn there,\u00a0 according to his\u00a0website(link is external)<\/span><\/span><\/a>, his\u00a0Linked in(link is external)<\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0page, and an\u00a0article(link is external)<\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0published by Business Insider.<\/p>\n

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 \u00a0to delay serving time until March 2024 because, according to their legal filings, Jessica\u00a0 Kalasho is pregnant and due to deliver in November. Jessica Kalasho submitted a signed declaration from \u00a0a 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\u2019 attorney claimed Jessica would \u201cpotentially 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

However,\u00a0 Charry submitted evidence that the Kalashos traveled to San Diego in June and\u00a0 July to attend parties.<\/p>\n

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 \u00a0return to San Diego Sept. 1 to begin serving their jail sentence.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe message was, \u2019You will suffer the consequences,\u2019\u201d\u00a0 Judge Medel stated.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Original Article Link: EX-COUNCILMAN BEN KALASHO AND WIFE SENTENCED TO JAIL FOR CONTEMPT OF COURT | East County Magazine<\/a><\/p>\n

Image Credit: Canva<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Original Article Link: EX-COUNCILMAN BEN KALASHO AND WIFE SENTENCED TO JAIL FOR CONTEMPT OF COURT | East County Magazine Judge denies couple\u2019s request to delay sentencing, after they claimed air travel was unsafe for Jessica Kalasho due to pregnancy By Miriam Raftery August 26, 2023\u00a0 (San Diego) \u2013 Former El Cajon Councilman Bessmon\u00a0 \u201cBen\u201d Kalasho…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":9507,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nEX-COUNCILMAN BEN KALASHO AND WIFE SENTENCED TO JAIL FOR CONTEMPT OF COURT - San Diego News Desk<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/?p=10027\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"EX-COUNCILMAN BEN KALASHO AND WIFE SENTENCED TO JAIL FOR CONTEMPT OF COURT - 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