Trial for former Belmont chamber president begins

"Trust yourself,” prosecutor Ivan Nightengale said during opening statements. "Listen to the details.”

Those details, according to the prosecution include a three-year span of fondling, nearly two dozen spankings and placing the girl’s hand on his genitals. Kazarian allegedly would slip into the girl’s bed at night after her mother went to sleep and also forced her to pick a belt and take down her pants for spankings.

The claims led to 17 counts of child molestation and the special allegation of committing continuous acts of lewd and lascivious behavior.

But defense attorney Steve Chase painted for jurors a different picture, one in which is 51-year-old client is the victim, unfairly targeted by the daughter of a woman who stole money from him and has since changed her story several times.

"You will hear probably three versions of [the girl’s] story,” Chase said.

The version most under the microscope might be that offered in a pretext phone call made by the girl to Kazarian at the prompting of the San Mateo Police Department. Pretext calls are often used by police to confirm or deny specific allegations. The call was the subject of a lengthy hearing outside of jurors before opening statements as both sides argued to Judge Joseph Scott about what aspects are admissible.

Nightengale says it shows Kazarian is guilty because he doesn’t deny her accusations. Chase said it only shows that the alleged victim was aware of the bad blood between her mother and Kazarian when she made her claims.

"Not once ... does Mr. Kazarian say he ever did anything inappropriate,” Chase said of the nearly two-hour tape.

Nightengale told jurors to pay attention not only to what is said but also what is omitted.

On the tape, the girl said "I’m having problems with how you used to touch me,” Nightengale said.

The response, he continued, was silence followed by, "yeah, I’m listening.”

Rather than deny the claims, Kazarian talked about the police, the embezzlement by the girl’s mother and "everything but why she’s calling,” Nightengale said.

Although the relationship between Kazarian and the alleged victim’s mother, Julie Culpepper, disintegrated, it began pleasantly when the flooring company owner met her through a flooring purveyor in Southern California, Chase said.

Culpepper and her 8-year-old daughter moved in to Kazarian’s San Mateo residence on Thanksgiving 1999 in which the girl slept on an air mattress in the living room. Kazarian enjoyed his role as a stepfather figure and if the girl was ever assaulted, she made no complaints and never asked her father in Southern California to come live with him, Chase said.

Culpepper and her daughter, then 10, moved out in 2002 but in the pre-trial hearing the girl said she didn’t know or ask why. She did not tell her mother of the alleged molestation until last February during an unrelated argument. The then-17-year-old girl then informed her father who contacted San Mateo police and began the process leading up to Kazarian’s May 18 arrest.

Kazarian will testify himself "about how much he loved that little girl” and the falseness of the accusations, Chase said.

He also promised jurors they will see for themselves that the allegations have no corroboration. Kazarian told the girl on the call that she was the one who tried getting Kazarian to touch her on two occasions.

"You took my hand and started to push it down where it shouldn’t be,” Chase told jurors they will hear Kazarian say on the tape.

"All this is is a pack of lies,” Chase said.

As the prosecution’s first witness, Donald Culpepper, the girl’s father, said his first thoughts after learning of the alleged molestation was revenge.

"I wanted to beat the hell out of him,” Culpepper said.

If convicted, Kazarian faces between 25 and 30 years in prison and registration as a sex offender. He remains in custody in lieu of $1 million bail.

Michelle Durand can be reached by e-mail: michelle@smdailyjournal.com or by phone: (650) 344-5200 ext. 102.