Torres

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

I. Facts1

Sandra Torres (plaintiff) and Farzad Khalili (Khalili) are not married civilly, but have been married “in the Jewish religion,” have children together, and consider themselves husband and wife. Sean Saied (Saied) is Khalili’s second cousin. In 2017, Khalili told Saied that he and plaintiff were having financial difficulties. More specifically, Khalili explained that a commercial property he and plaintiff owned in downtown

1 These facts are drawn from the settled statement corrected and approved by the trial court. Because the parties elected not to have a court reporter, the statement’s recitation of facts cannot be contradicted. (Cross v. Tustin (1951) 37 Cal.2d 821, 826 [“[W]hen the litigant fails to convince the trial judge that his proposed [settled] statement accurately reflects the proceedings in question, the action of the judge who heard and tried the case must be regarded as final”].) We have accordingly disregarded any statements in the parties’ briefs that dispute the facts set forth in the settled statement.

2 Los Angeles was in foreclosure on a $1.25 million loan and lamented that, although he had the funds to…