Allegheny County jury begins deliberations in South Side sexual assault case

Adnan Pehlivan’s defense attorney conceded Monday that his client may have acted strangely at Kopy’s bar on Pittsburgh’s South Side the night of May 15, 2018.

In closing arguments during Pehlivan’s trial on sex charges, defense attorney Lee Rothman said it was true that his client bought himself and three young women shots of Fireball that night, only to pour out his own drinks while the women drank theirs.

Pehlivan also performed magic tricks and talked up his restaurant, business relationships and political involvement, Rothman added.

“They want you to feel because he acted a certain way at the bar, that translates into him committing a crime,” Rothman said. “This is not about what happened in a bar. This is about what happened on Josephine Street.”

Assistant District Attorney Emma Schoedel told the jury what happened at Kopy’s that night is relevant.

“From the first shot to the last, he was trying to get them drunk while he remained sober,” she said. “He wanted to brag. He wanted to seem important. He wanted to impress them. That’s the biggest illusion of all.”

Pehlivan, 50, is charged with involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, burglary, indecent assault and sexual assault. The jury of seven men and five women began deliberations around 4 p.m. following closing arguments before Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Anthony M. Mariani and was sent home nearly an hour later.

This is Pehlivan’s second trial. The first in March 2019 ended with an acquittal on charges of stalking and simple assault and the jury unable to reach a unanimous verdict on the remaining counts.

Pittsburgh police said Pehlivan entered the South Side bar about a minute after the alleged victim and her two friends did and sat next to them. Schoedel played video showing Pehlivan driving down the street when the women entered the bar, and he immediately pulled over and went inside.

Over the course of more than an hour, Pehlivan bought them at least three shots. Then, when the women left, Schoedel said Pehlivan followed them home to their house on Josephine Street and broke in about 40 minutes later.

The alleged victim told police she had gone to bed and woke up to a man performing oral sex on her. She grabbed his head, repeatedly asked “Who are you?” and ultimately chased him from her home — in the process, tearing off a piece of his undershirt and buttons from his dress shirt. She immediately called 911 and went to the hospital for a sexual assault exam.

The Tribune-Review does not name alleged victims of sexual assault.

During the trial, there was testimony that Pehlivan’s DNA was found on the woman’s body, that the torn piece of T-shirt matched a shirt found at his home and that his palm print was found on a front window of the women’s house.

Pehlivan testified on his own behalf Friday and had an explanation for each of those items of evidence.

He testified that the alleged victim invited him back to her house and instructed him to follow her home in his car so her friends wouldn’t know about their encounter.

Pehlivan said that after he and the woman had become intimate, she became upset and told him ‘no’ and he tried to leave — but not before she chased him and tore his shirt.

As for the partial palm print on the window, Pehlivan testified during the second trial that he must have leaned on the window when he was making sure he had gone to the right house. However, Schoedel pointed out that during the first trial, Pehlivan testified that he never touched that window.

“The defendant has to craft a story where he has an answer for everything but concedes absolutely nothing,” Schoedel said. “He asks you all to believe the unbelievable. You can see how his story changes when the evidence changes.”

But she added, “Videos don’t lie.”

During her closing, Schoedel played snippets of video from inside Kopy’s, showing Pehlivan buying the women shots but surreptitiously pouring his own out. Other clips showed him reaching into one of the women’s purses while they weren’t looking and others of him following the women in his car as they walked down Carson Street. He would pass them as they walked, pull over and turn his car off. Once they passed, he started his engine again and pulled ahead of them.

Rothman offered explanations.

The defense attorney said Pehlivan poured out his shots because he didn’t like the taste of the liquor and didn’t want to be seen as not able to keep up with the much younger women. He said Pehlivan reached inside the woman’s purse to hide a coin because he planned to do a magic trick in which she would find it inside her bag, and he followed the women home because that’s what the alleged victim instructed him to do.

Rothman repeatedly talked about that woman’s mental health history, noting that she had been diagnosed with anxiety disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder and took medications for the conditions. He said she also consumed at least 10 alcoholic drinks on the night of the alleged assault.

“What is she doing on a Monday night before she has to go to work the next day? Ten drinks on a Monday night?” Rothman asked.

Rothman also pointed out inconsistencies in the woman’s testimony. She told a nurse who examined her that night that she had taken Xanax that day, but then testified at trial that she had not. She also testified at trial that she had been to Kopy’s 10 or 12 times in the past, but her friends said they went there two or three times each week for a year.

“The truth doesn’t matter to her,” Rothman told the jury. “What mattered is, ‘I need to bolster my story.’”

Offering the jurors his theory on what happened that night, Rothman said he believed the alleged victim made a bad decision.

“And in the middle of that process, she freaked out,” he said.

Rothman said his client had a good reputation in the community for service and was a successful restaurant owner.

The defense attorney said it would make no sense for Pehlivan to share his name, restaurant and other identifying information and then break into the woman’s home to assault her without trying to conceal his face or restrain her in some way.

During her closing, Schoedel told the jurors “there’s no right way to be a victim.”

“I call upon you to reject the blaming, reject the name dropping and the fake status,” Schoedel said. “Is this how a consensual sexual partner comes to someone’s home? Is this how a consensual encounter ends — with a torn shirt and missing buttons?

“(The alleged victim) is a friend, a daughter, a member of our community. She’s strong and resilient and worthy of belief — not because I say so, but because the evidence says so.”