The stakes have risen in a multimillion-dollar legal dispute between a New Orleans surgeon accused of raping his wife and illegally filming nude clients and a former friend and business associate who faces a charge of negligent homicide for crashing a Lamborghini into a floodwall in May, killing his passenger.
Dr. Alireza Sadeghi filed a second lawsuit this month in Jefferson Parish against Jason Adams, alleging an additional half-million dollars in purloined funds.
In the lawsuit, Sadeghi claims that Adams took a total of $519,000 over three months that was meant for construction work on a property on Houma Boulevard. The money never reached the contractor, the suit says.
The new complaint against Adams and two of his businesses, Elite Investment Group and Elite Medical Enterprises, adds to the $3.7 million that Sadeghi earlier claimed Adams swiped from Sadeghi's business, Aesthetic and Reconstructive Breast Center.
The latter figure included a $2 million loan that Sadeghi said Adams has failed to repay — money that Adams put into the purchase of a Hammond office building.
Adams forged checks from Sadeghi's business and funneled the money into his own accounts without the doctor's knowledge, the lawsuit claimed.
Until both men found themselves facing separate felony charges in May, they were close friends, business associates and the drivers of matching Lamborghini Huracans.
Related+2
Six months ago, Dr. Alireza Sadeghi and Jason Adams were riding high.
Sadeghi had trusted Adams to handle the books for his breast surgery center and other "business affairs," legal filings show.
But the gloves are now off between the former pals.
Sadeghi has accused Adams, a local real estate broker and investor, of a racketeering scheme. But in response to the first lawsuit, filed in September, Adams said the doctor knew full well where his money went.
Adams said he even helped Sadeghi pay $357,000 in hush money to a former office manager with whom the doctor had carried on an affair.
RelatedA multimillion-dollar legal dispute between an acclaimed New Orleans breast surgeon and his …
Adams also claimed Sadeghi "is the one who suggested that he loan Adams the ($2 million) to purchase the building" in Hammond, saying that it would help him shelter the money from his pending divorce.
Sadeghi's civil attorney, David Halpern, could not be reached Friday.
David Courcelle, Adams' attorney in both the civil and criminal matters, said he hadn't yet reviewed the latest lawsuit and couldn't comment.
Sadeghi, 41, has pleaded not guilty in Orleans Parish Criminal District Court to a rape charge and five counts of video voyeurism in a case that remains without a trial date amid a flurry of pre-trial activity.
He is accused of raping his estranged wife sometime in 2014 and of videotaping multiple clients while they were lying nude in the operating room. Prosecutors claim Sadeghi sent at least one of the videos to a friend.
Sadeghi's criminal attorneys have called the rape allegation bogus, the product of a bitter divorce, and have characterized the voyeurism counts as the result of authorities mistaking clinical shots for illicit material.
District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro's office is appealing a recent decision by Criminal District Court Judge Laurie White that, in Sadeghi's case, a state law that would bar him from contact with his three children is unconstitutional.
Related+2
Allegations that he raped and secretly videotaped his wife aren't enough to keep a New Orlea…
Nor has a trial date been set for Adams, 30. He appeared this week in a different courtroom as Courcelle urged Judge Robin Pittman to suppress statements Adams made to police after the high-speed crash that killed his passenger, 23-year-old Kristi Lynn Lirette.
Those statements included an admission by Adams that he had been drinking and was speeding before the wreck on Tchoupitoulas Street, according to a nola.com report.
Adams also is seeking to suppress evidence showing that Adams registered a blood-alcohol level of .11 percent, above the legal driving limit of .08. Adams told a detective he'd had two drinks.
Police now say Adams may have been driving just below 100 mph — not the initially estimated 118 mph — when he lost control of the Lamborghini and slammed into the floodwall.
Pittman said she would rule Tuesday on the requests.
Both Adams and Sadeghi remain free on bond.
Follow John Simerman on Twitter, @johnsimerman.
No comments:
Post a Comment