Warning: Disturbing subject matter.
A Coquitlam medical aesthetics practitioner has been sentenced to a lengthy prison term after being found guilty of sexually assaulting seven women during intimate clinical procedures.
On Sept. 16, 2025, Justice Lisa Warren of the B.C. Supreme Court sentenced 52-year-old Farshad Khojsteh Kashani following a jury’s verdict last year convicting him on seven counts of sexual assault.
Warren described Kashani’s crimes as a profound breach of trust that left lasting scars on each of his victims.
“Each of the complainants trusted Mr. Khojsteh Kashani,” Warren said in her ruling. “Each of the offences exploited the complainants’ physical and psychological vulnerability, a vulnerability that Mr. Khojsteh Kashani himself created.”
The assaults took place at Kashani’s aesthetics clinic between 2019 and 2021, where he performed procedures such as Botox, fillers, microneedling and vaginal rejuvenation using a high-intensity focused ultrasound device.
The court heard that each of the seven complainants was a client of Kashani’s and that he exploited their lack of knowledge about intimate treatments to disguise deliberate and invasive sexual touching as medical procedures.
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Women described him inserting the ultrasound wand and then thrusting it aggressively, rubbing their clitoral area, and in some cases penetrating them with his fingers. Some recalled him making sexualized comments, and refusing to stop even after they told him to.
Warren found that the assaults were not fleeting or incidental, but prolonged and degrading violations that often lasted between 10 and 60 minutes.
The judge emphasized the complainants were placed in highly vulnerable positions, undressed from the waist down and trusting Kashani to carry out legitimate medical treatments, only to be manipulated and assaulted in ways that had no clinical justification.
Warren said it was apparent from both their testimony and their statements that each complainant has suffered serious, ongoing harm.
In their victim impact statements, they described humiliation, fear, shame and a lasting distrust of medical professionals.
One survivor said she was “deeply traumatized” and struggled with feelings of guilt that she had not reported sooner, while another described the experience as “humiliating, degrading and terrifying,” noting the additional harm caused by the delays and frustrations of the police investigation.
Others reported that the assaults left them fearful of retaliation, anxious during medical procedures, physically ill when memories resurfaced, or unable to trust men around their children.
At sentencing, the Crown sought a global sentence of 12 years and three months, based on consecutive terms for each offence reduced under the totality principle, and also requested a lifetime order under the Sex Offender Information Registration Act.
The defence argued for a conditional sentence of two years less a day, to be served in the community with probation, emphasizing Kashani’s lack of a prior criminal record, his supportive family and community network, and what they described as situational offending. They opposed lifetime registration, suggesting a twenty-year order instead.
Warren, however, rejected the defence proposal, ruling that a community-based sentence would be “manifestly disproportionate” given the seriousness of the offences.
The judge concluded that denunciation and deterrence were of central importance, pointing to aggravating factors that included the deliberate deception of clients, the highly invasive and prolonged nature of the assaults, the infliction of pain, the persistence despite requests to stop in several cases, and the planning involved in encouraging women to undergo procedures they had not otherwise sought out.
She described Kashani’s moral blameworthiness as “very substantial” and noted that his otherwise good character could not be given mitigating weight, since he used that character to gain trust and then violate his victims.
Although Kashani presented numerous letters of support from family, friends, and clients, has no prior record and has led a productive life, Warren said those factors could not outweigh the scale and seriousness of his conduct.
A psychological assessment concluded that he represents a moderate risk to reoffend in clinical settings without oversight, particularly given his minimization of the assaults and lack of genuine remorse.
Kashani has maintained his innocence throughout the trial, but had expressed willingness to participate in sex offender treatment, despite also stating he did not believe it was necessary.
Warren imposed a global sentence of 11-years, minus 252 days of time served, along with the Crown’s requested ancillary orders, including lifetime registration on the national sex offender registry.
“This is not a case of diminished moral blameworthiness,” Warren said. “To the contrary, Mr. Khojsteh Kashani’s moral blameworthiness in relation to each offence was very substantial.”
