Former Billionaire Boy wants drug trial moved

Eslaminia, 44, is scheduled to begin a jury trial Monday on drug possession and a misdemeanor charge of driving on a suspended license. While a conviction on the charges wouldn’t normally carry any prison term close to the murder sentence he escaped, Eslaminia’s prior record does make it a second criminal strike with a six-year possibility. Eslaminia actually has two 1981 attempted burglary convictions but prosecutors said they will not seek a three-strikes sentence of 25 years to life. His past, though, is also keeping the District Attorney’s Office from dropping the misdemeanor, making him ineligible for Proposition 36 treatment rather than incarceration.

According to Eslaminia, that same past is reason why he cannot expect an impartial jury for the new case.

Eighteen years ago, Eslaminia was convicted in the death of Hedayat Eslaminia, a 56-year-old former Iranian Cabinet member who fled to the United States reportedly with $30 million. The elder Eslaminia was kidnapped from his Belmont apartment in 1984 and suffocated in a steamer trunk while being driven to Southern California. Eslaminia was one of five men — collectively labeled "The Billionaire Boys Club” — charged in the alleged extortion and murder scheme. The men, led by commodities trader Joe Hunt, turned to kidnapping after their investment schemes failed, prosecutors alleged.

The case became the most expensive and complicated in the history of San Mateo County. Hunt defended himself during a nine-month 1992 trial, in which the jury hung 8 to 4, and left the county with a staggering multi-million dollar bill that lingers. He is the only defendant in San Mateo County history to represent himself in a capital murder trial and not receive the death penalty. Hunt was later convicted of killing an alleged Beverly Hills con man and sentenced to life in prison.

In 1987, Eslaminia and Arben Dosti were convicted but the ruling was reversed by a federal court after a judge found the jury had been given a taped interview it was not supposed to hear. Dosti pleaded no contest rather than face retrial but Eslaminia fought his charges. The case was dismissed in 1998 and in 2001, Eslaminia sued Dosti for the wrongful death of his father.

Eslaminia served roughly a decade in custody until the reversal, which Johnston once blamed for his client’s inability to meet scheduled court appearances for his new case.

On July 31, 2002, police arrested Eslaminia after reportedly finding cocaine, heroin and a hypodermic syringe in his possession during a traffic stop. Since his arrest, Eslaminia has continually delayed his trial — once because his original attorney was appointed a San Mateo County Superior Court judge in 2004 — and failed to appear in court six times while free from custody. Each time, a bench warrant was issued and a new bail set. After his last stint on the lam, however, Eslaminia was taken back to the county jail Sept. 9 where he remains.

Eslaminia also has an unrelated case for allegedly violating a restraining order by phoning a former girlfriend.

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