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Beverly Hills landlord sued for refusing to remove plastic surgeon’s Rodeo Drive sign
Doctor complains a competitor is trying to steal his business and blames Bahador Mahboubi
UPDATED on Jan. 8, 2018, at 5:27 p.m.: Beverly Hills landlord Bahador Mahboubi is caught up in a dispute between two competing plastic surgeons with offices at one of his Rodeo Drive properties.
Plastic Surgeon Lloyd Krieger claims that Emil Kohan, his competitor and neighbor at 421 N. Rodeo Drive, is trying to steal customers by imitating his business’s name, according to a suit filed in U.S. District Court. Krieger names Mahboubi as a defendant in the case and accuses him of being complicit.
Krieger claims that Kohan named his practice Rodeo Aesthetics Plastic Surgery, moved into his former office, and refuses to take down a sign outside for Rodeo Drive Plastic Surgery. Krieger further alleges that he moved the longtime office of his practice, Rodeo Drive Plastic Surgery, from one suite to another in the building in January 2018.
Kohan, he said, is misleading potential clients into thinking that Rodeo Drive Aesthetics Plastic Surgery is a successor business or affiliate of his own practice. Krieger claims “existing and potential patients” have been confused, mistaken or deceived by the signage.
A spokesperson for Kohan denied Tuesday that the name of the doctor’s practice is Rodeo Aesthetics Plastic Surgery. “It is not anywhere on his Instagram, website, Google page, or Yelp,” the spokesperson said. “The case has no validity.”
But his fellow plastic surgeon isn’t the only person Krieger is pointing a finger at. Mahboubi’s company, Rodeo Collection Ltd., he said, also refused to remove the signs, and wouldn’t put Rodeo Drive Plastic Surgery on the directories in the building, leading to further confusion for potential patients.
Krieger is seeking monetary damages and attorney fees from the Iranian businessman, who is named in three of the five complaints leveled in the suit.
Mahboubi moved to Beverly Hills from Iran in the late 1980s and built an empire of retail real estate with capital he amassed in Iran through a chewing gum enterprise. His success earned him the nickname the “chewing gum king” from the Los Angeles Times in 1993.