An LAPD investigator says he was ordered not to investigate the girl's death

A veteran LAPD narcotics detective is suing the city of LA, saying he faced retaliation from supervisors and other officers after he refused to stop investigating the suspicious death of a young woman.

Alexander Tan is accused in his case, filed July 7 in the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, that his unwillingness to comply with the “organized cover-up” of the death of Amelia Salehpour, 18, led the department to interfere with the “honorable” work that included many awards and recognition.

“The Department's message through these actions is clear: officers who report misconduct, even if that misconduct results in the death of an innocent person, will face severe disciplinary action. Officers who disclose violations of the law, even if those violations include criminal negligence, will be ostracized, abused, and removed from the Department,” the lawsuit said. “This is not just revenge against one officer, it is a warning to all members of the Department that telling the truth will make them lose their jobs.”

In early 2024, Tan and his former police colleague, Det. Jose Verdin, was conducting an investigation of what police described as a so-called flop house in Van Nuys when he learned of Salehpour's death there.

Tan said at trial that Salehpour's death was wrongly attributed to an overdose. He stated that he and his colleagues found evidence that he had been strangled. When detectives reported their findings to their chain of command, Tan said in the lawsuit, the department retaliated by taking away resources from their investigation, “disbanded” their drug enforcement team, and ultimately separated their colleagues by transferring them to different units.

Tan's lawsuit alleges that the department “wanted to weaken, silence, and isolate the relationship that threatened to expose its evil.”

The reason, Tan suspected in this case, was that department officials were afraid that they would be sued by the Salehpour family for negligent handling of the case.

“Plaintiff could not sit by and watch while the Department got away with killing with impunity, just to avoid a charge of negligence and carelessness on the part of LAPD officers,” the lawsuit reads.

Verdin filed her own retaliation lawsuit, and the prosecutor who handled the case filed a federal lawsuit, saying she faced a “hostile work environment” as the LAPD sought to “silence” her.

The LAPD said it does not discuss pending litigation and the city attorney's office, which usually defends the city in civil cases, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Salehpour's parents say they believe their daughter was killed, and the LAPD and LA County medical examiner's office have maintained that she died of an overdose.

Last year, a deputy district attorney filed criminal charges — which have since been dismissed — against seven people suspected of involvement in Salehpour's death based on evidence collected by Tan and his partner, as well as the family's private investigators.

The case began in July 2023, when Salehpour left an Orange County drug addiction treatment center for a Van Nuys area that police say is a known sex-trafficking spot. He was found dead a few days later, according to his family and authorities.

The medical examiner's office concluded that Salehpour died of a mixture of heroin, fentanyl, cocaine and methamphetamine.

But according to a lawsuit filed by his family against the city of LA and others, his death was determined to be an overdose because he was found slumped on the floor next to an open cabinet with needles and a burnt spoon and black tar heroin. The family alleged in court that the incident was done to cover up his murder.

The case was handled by detectives from the LAPD's Valley Homicide Unit, but Tan said at his trial that he and Verdin believed their colleagues had overlooked important evidence and began advocating — along with Salehpour's parents — that the death was a homicide.

Tan said in his lawsuit that he and Verdin were ordered by their captain, Chris Zine, to cut off contact with the family. In another meeting with the Department of Education, Tan says in the lawsuit, he was told to “stop it.”

Detectives were denied overtime pay for court appearances and had their schedules and days off changed “punitively,” according to Tan's lawsuit.

“The message was clear: continue this investigation, and we will destroy your career,” the lawsuit said. “We want you to sweep this under the rug and call it overkill.”

The department wanted to paint Salehpour as a “thug,” apparently to justify the decision not to pursue charges against his alleged killers, according to the lawsuit.

At trial, Tan described a phone conversation on Jan. 28, 2025, when it is said that the police chief said to him: “In fact, if I help you, I am helping the family to sue the Department.”

Los Angeles County District Attorney, Deputy District Attorney. He said. Ranna Jahanshahi, sided with Tan and his accomplice, according to the lawsuit, but the LAPD refused to turn over the dash cam footage of the incident after Jahanshahi filed for murder and other charges. Tan alleged in his civil complaint that the refusal was an unusual move given how closely police and prosecutors often work together in criminal cases.

“The only possible reason for this refusal is to destroy the criminal case in the hope that the murder charges will be dropped,” said Tan's lawsuit, adding that the department later ignored the court's order to change the camera. “This was not just non-cooperation, it was contempt of court that is blocking the murder investigation.”

Los Angeles authorities have insisted that their initial classification of Salehpour's death was true – and accused his wealthy family of trying to twist the facts to fit their account of what happened.

The Salehpours filed multiple lawsuits over their daughter's death; The city of Los Angeles is a defendant in one of the lawsuits, which is still pending. City attorneys maintain that there was no wrongdoing by investigators.

Salehpour's father, Ali Salehpour, was an executive at Applied Materials Inc., a supplier of materials used to make microchips. He and his wife, Sue, told The Times newspaper last year that they spent more than $1 million to hire a high-profile forensics firm, which they said produced evidence that Amelia was being groomed for sex work, and that her death appeared to be an overdose. They paid for an independent autopsy, which found signs of strangulation, according to court documents in their civil suit against the city.

The family's attorney, Alan Jackson, a former Los Angeles County prosecutor, declined to comment when reached by phone Thursday.

Verdin filed a similar retaliation lawsuit against Tan last month. Both detectives are represented by Matthew McNicholas, a longtime labor attorney who has built a career successfully suing the LAPD on behalf of injured police officers.

Jahanshahi, the prosecutor previously assigned to the case, is alleged in his case to have faced retaliation against his office after discovering “negligence, misconduct and failure by LAPD officers,” and tried to “clarify the initial cover-up efforts made by the LAPD.”

The defendants facing charges against Jahanshahi pleaded not guilty before the charges were dropped. Through their lawyers, they accused Jahanshahi of working with the Salehpour family to prosecute them.