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File photo of Bessmon (Ben) Kalasho in his Fletcher Hills homeBy Karen Pearlman
April 23, 2025 (San Diego) – Former El Cajon City Council member Bessmon (Ben) Kalasho and his wife, Jessica Deddeh Kalasho, were in San Diego Superior Court this week facing a slew of municipal code compliance violations and civil penalties related to the couple’s Fletcher Hills home.
Myriad code compliance violations for unpermitted and illegal additions to the Kalashos’ home on Cliffdale Road were part of the discussion at the trial that came in response to a lawsuit filed in 2023 by the city of El Cajon.
Some of the fines that started at $200 per violation have now escalated to several thousands of dollars per day.
The suit filed by the city names as defendants Kalasho, his wife, and several others, including Maximilian Von Ayers, listed as a trustee of the residence, and Israel Moses Sieff LLC. Neither Von Ayers nor Sieff appeared in court.
After two-plus days of testimony, Superior Court Judge Joel Wohlfeil on April 23 ruled that closing briefs regarding the issue will be shared next month. Wohlfeil gave El Cajon’s attorney Steven Boehmer until May 9 for the city’s closing briefs, and Ben Kalasho, who represented himself during the trial, until May 23 for his closing briefs.
Boehmer asked the court to craft a way to get the fines paid in “a reasonable period of time” and offered to share more details and timelines to assist with the remedies the city seeks.
He said he looked to the court to apply “the appropriate level of fines as a deterrent to Mr. Kalasho.”
“The long-short of it is I don’t have a high degree of confidence at this juncture over the years that have transpired… and ways (Kalasho) has handled this matter,” Boehmer told Wohlfeil.
According to the original complaint, the city is seeking injunctive relief, which includes the removal of the unpermitted dwelling unit and the sale of movable properties within it under the supervision of a court-appointed receiver.
If the proceeds from rents and the sale of movable items do not cover the amount owed, the city has requested that the court order sale of the home.
The complaint by the city said Kalasho and the other named defendants had allowed for unpermitted construction of an outdoor staircase and deck, and built an unpermitted second kitchen in the A-frame home which Kalasho had advertised as the “Chamber House” bed and breakfast inn.
During the trial, in which a former building inspector and a current building inspector with the city testified on what they saw at the Kalashos’ home, Boehmer said that the home also had unpermitted plumbing and electrical work done in two added bathrooms, an unpermitted garage conversion, an unpermitted gas line in a kitchen renovation and the addition of windows that do not meet specific egress and safety requirements.
Boehmer said the work Kalasho had done in the home, some of it by unlicensed workers -- as Kalasho admitted to the court -- could put anyone living in the home and neighbors in jeopardy -- especially in the case of a fire.
During closing arguments, Kalasho surprised many in the courtroom by telling the judge that there was currently a family living in the home, a fact that had not come up during the trial. That prompted Boehmer to raise concerns about those tenants and their safety.
Castle Life and Code Compliance Concerns
The code compliance violations for the home have been adding up through the years since 2019, around the time Kalasho and his wife moved to the East Coast following Kalasho’s resignation from the City Council.
Although Kalasho would not share information about where he moved, when or where they are now, he said they have lived in both North Carolina and South Carolina as well as Tennessee and Florida since leaving El Cajon.
In a February hearing on contempt of court charges in an unrelated civil case, Ben Kalasho told that judge, “I live half the year in North Carolina and half the year in Dubai.”
He has been been working under the pseudonym Chef Benjamin Epicure at Smithmore Castle, a luxury hotel and wedding venue in North Carolina. According to a Facebook page for Benjamin Epicure, he is also currently employed at the Dubai Creek Gold & Yacht Club Residences in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Code compliance officers in September 2019 first “observed and took photographs of unpermitted construction of an outdoor stair and a deck and an unpermitted second kitchen in the primary dwelling,” according to the city’s complaint.
City of El Cajon building official Andre Sanchez testified as to what he found during a visit to the home last year. Retired city building and fire safety inspector LC Wright also appeared remotely to explain what he had seen at the Fletcher Hills home.
The city of El Cajon conducted more code compliance investigations at the Kalashos’ home in 2021 and 2022, finding multiple violations.
Despite the city sending multiple warning letters, the Kalashos continued to fail to address these issues, leading to fines accumulating exponentially.
Ben Kalasho said during the trial that he didn’t receive any of the letters from the city, which the judge said he found hard to believe.
The Past in the Present
Kalasho several times talked about his time on the City Council starting with his election in 2016, and where he said he was on the losing side of many 4-1 votes. He said he understood the city’s inner workings and that he knows "how the sausage is made."
As for the complaint about code violations and fines, Kalasho said that he felt singled out with “selected enforcement,” and told the judge that he wanted to be treated “like a normal person” by the city.
While the city had also expressed concern in the complaint about an illegal short-term rental/bed-and-breakfast in that home, the arguments made by attorney Boehmer concentrated on the state of the home and the lack of response from the Kalashos.
Daniel Ayala, who said he lived in the Cliffdale home as a renter for several months last year after seeing a listing on Zillow, told the court that his landlord as he understood it to be was Maximilian Von Ayers, the alleged trust holder of the home.
Ayala testified that after speaking by phone with “the trustee of the home” on several occasions, he was certain that Von Ayers was actually Kalasho.
When asked several times by Boehmer about the legitimacy of Von Ayers during his testimony, Kalasho invoked his Fifth Amendment right. The court also heard testimony that the city hired a firm to do a nationwide search for Von Ayers, and that no one by that name was found.
Several years ago, local attorney Lina Charry won a defamation case against Kalasho and his wife, but the couple repeatedly failed to provide financial documentation to enable Charry to collect on that judgment.
The Kalashos have been ordered to show up in San Diego Superior Court on June 9 to serve an eight-day incarceration for contempt of court, an order issued after the couple repeatedly failed to appear or failed to produce documentation of their assets in the Charry case.
Charry was initially penciled in to be part of this week’s trial, but she said she was never called in to testify.
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