Oregon man is convicted of rape

An Oregon Man has been convicted of raping a woman in a Costa Mesa hotel room after meeting her through an online dating service. He later stalked the woman for a year and half, harassing her with phone calls and e-mails, according to the Orange County district attorney’s office.

Tooraj Aghminyoni Nakhei, 54, of Hillsborough, Ore., faces a maximum sentence of 15 years and four months in state prison. An Orange County Superior Court jury Thursday found Nakhei guilty of one felony count each of forcible rape, forcible oral copulation, stalking, dissuading a witness from reporting a crime and one misdemeanor count of disobeying a court order.

Nakhei met the victim in 2003, and the two contacted each other sporadically for the next four years. In May 2007, Nakhei flew from Oregon to Orange County to meet the victim.

The woman agreed to meet Nakhei for dinner at the Costa Mesa hotel where he was staying. After the meal, Nakhei told the woman he had flowers for her in his hotel room. Once the woman was inside the room, Nakhei assaulted her.

Embarrassed by the incident, the woman did not report the rape to police at the time.

Over the next year and a half, Nakhei called the victim hundreds of times and sent several e-mails to her and her family.

At times, Nakhei apologized to the woman for what had happened, but other times he called her names and told her he wished that she were dead.

In December 2007, the victim filed a police report about being stalked.

Nakhei was arrested for stalking the woman near her home Oct. 12, 2008.

While he was in police custody, the woman reported that Nakhei had raped her.

In March, Nakhei violated a court-issued protective order that barred him for making contact with the victim. He approached the woman in the parking garage of her residence and attempted to get into her car with her, demanding that she tell the court she had not been raped.

The woman attempted to call 9-1-1, but Nakhei ordered her not to call police. Nakhei was arrested the next day and has been in police custody since.

He is slated to be sentenced Dec. 11 at the Central Justice Center in Santa Ana.