A Perth dentist has gone on trial this week over explosive allegations he drugged and raped multiple young women over two months of 2022 after meeting them on dating apps Tinder and Bumble.
Farzam Mehrabi, 34, is accused of meeting the women, all aged between 18 and 20, in various Perth bars before inviting them back to his parents’ house in Shelley.
Farzam Mehrabi is accused of drugging and raping multiple young women.Credit: Nine News Perth
Mehrabi, who was born in Iran and moved to Australia as a child, was also a third-year medical student at Notre Dame University.
State prosecutors claim Mehrabi, then aged 31, mixed a cocktail of drugs including MDMA, MDA, lorazepam and methamphetamine into drinks he bought or made for them before allegedly engaging in rough non-consensual sex.
During his opening statement to the jury at Perth’s District Court on Thursday, prosecutor David Davidson played CCTV footage of Mehrabi driving the women to and from his home in his grey Jaguar, as well as footage from Perth bar Bobeche, showing Mehrabi putting MDMA into one of the women’s drinks, and stirring it with a straw while she was in the bathroom.
But defence lawyer Simon Freitag told the jury that while Mehrabi admitted putting drugs into the drink, he did so with the woman’s consent and open knowledge.
The court was also shown CCTV footage of another occasion: Mehrabi taking two glasses of water into the men’s toilet at the same bar before taking them back to one of the girls he was on a date with.
Seven women in total made complaints to the police forming a total of 25 charges against Mehrabi including sexual penetration without consent, unlawful and indecent assault, impeding another person’s breathing by applying pressure to the neck, offering to sell and supply drugs, supplying a prohibited drug, and stupefying in order to commit an indictable offence.
Mehrabi has pleaded guilty to three of the charges: supplying drugs to two of the girls and offering to supply drugs to another.
Only five of them have alleged sexual misconduct.
Mehrabi denies 22 of the charges.
Farzam Mehrabi leaving Perth District Court.Credit: Nine News Perth
During the openings Davidson told the jury how Mehrabi lied about his age when matching with the women online before allegedly engaging in conversations about his drug use during dates with them.
The jury heard Mehrabi allegedly bragged about how he only used “the purest stuff you can get” that he had allegedly bought from Switzerland.
One girl, who woke up in Mehrabi’s bed allegedly with scratches and bruises, feeling nauseous and dizzy with her teeth chattering and no recollection of the night before, recorded a phone call with him a few days later, which was played to the jury.
The court heard the woman asking Mehrabi what had happened on the night.
“I’m so confused, because I’ve never been blackout drunk before, and we only had four drinks,” she is heard saying.
“You can be honest with me, if you gave me something, just tell me.”
Mehrabi can be heard promising the woman he did not give her anything and claims that they were just both intoxicated from alcohol.
Freitag went on to tell the court that at the time of the alleged offences, his client was a single heterosexual man who was good-looking, well off and articulate.
“So from the point of view of a dating app, he ticks a lot of boxes and attracts a lot of interest,” he said.
He also told the jury that at that time Mehrabi was going on numerous dates and “thought of himself as something of a player”.
“And we say none of that is sinister or criminal,” Freitag said.
He also told the jury Mehrabi had admitted to enjoying using MDMA in dating and sexual situations, but that he liked to use the drugs “with women, not against them”.
“He had been using MDMA for about three years,” Freitag said.
“He will say it’s something that he liked doing, he enjoyed using drugs and wanted to use them on dates and with women he was with, to enhance the experience he had with them.”
But Freitag stated that Mehrabi was always upfront with the women about the drugs and that each of the sexual encounters and drug taking was fully consented to.
The trial continues.