An Iranian dentist raped several young women after meeting them on Tinder and Bumble and spiking their drinks in Perth bars.
Farzam Mehrabi, 34, who came to Australia from Iran as a child, was found guilty of 22 charges during a four-week trial in the Western Australia District Court over the attacks on six women aged between 18 and 20 during February and March 2022.
A jury last week found the remorseless predator drugged and raped three of his victims, raped two others, and stupefied a sixth, but found him not guilty of one additional drink spiking charge.
He was also found guilty of choking one of his victims without consent, and previously pleaded guilty to three drug supply charges, according to ABC News.
Mehrabi admitted in court that he lied about his age, height and nationality on his dating app profiles, claiming to be 24, six foot tall instead of 5’9″, and half Portuguese instead of Iranian because of his “insecurity” about his ethnicity, The West Australian reported.
Judge Troy Sweeney allowed the release of footage showing Mehrabi spiking drinks in order to educate the public, and Mehrabi was remanded in custody for sentencing on December 17.
The court heard that Mehrabi mixed a cocktail of drugs including MDMA, MDA, lorazepam and methamphetamine inside drinks he bought or made for his victims before violently raping them at his parents’ home in Shelley.
He told his dates that he lived with elderly flatmates, telling the court: “I was 31 … I still feel embarrassed that I was living at home at that age”.
One of his victims recounted drinking with Mehrabi in his garden before getting blurry vision and vomiting. She then blacked out and woke up in his bedroom the next day with injuries on her body.
Another said she suffered blurred vision after having a martini which tasted bad, and was later raped and choked at his home.
One woman was drugged by Mehrabi but escaped being attacked after feeling sick and jumping out of his car while he was taking her back to his house. She was taken to hospital where a urine sample tested positive to MDMA, and CCTV footage from a bar showed him putting a substance into her drink.
Mehrabi claimed the sex was consensual and he liked to be dominant.
