Family and CSULB reach a settlement following daughter's suicide
It's been four years to the day since Hoss Khatami's daughter Eve took her own life.
"She was my beautiful baby girl," he said. "I just miss her. And I would give anything to have her back."
Just three months after Eve arrived on campus at California State University Long Beach, she killed herself with a lethal combination of prescription drugs. These drugs were given to her by a doctor employed by the university after Eve alleged she was sexually assaulted within weeks of starting classes.
Khatami said even though Eve was still a minor, no one from the university notified him, or Eve's mother, that she reported an assault or that she was struggling with her mental health. The grieving father said he learned about his daughter's struggles on the day that she died.
"You can be certain that if a bill was due for tuition that we would be the first to call as parents," said Khatami. "But in this case, when the health and safety of my child were in jeopardy, I didn't even get a call.
In Eve's campus medical record, it's noted that eve was cutting herself and having suicidal ideation. The 17-year-old even admitted to her on-campus psychiatrist that she researched combining her medications "to reassure herself she could kill herself with them if she lost control of impulse."
"There's absolutely no doubt in my mind that if I knew anything, just the fact that she was having a problem, I would've went down there and Eve would still be here today," said Khatami.
One week before Eve ended her life the campus psychiatrist wrote, "no acute intervention could reduce suicide risk."
In a statement to CBSLA, a Long Beach State spokesperson said "We remain deeply saddened by the death of our student."
Khatami recently settled a wrongful death lawsuit against CSULB and is now on a mission to warn parents of incoming college students.
"Parents should be aware that when they send their children to school after they graduate, the fact that they're 18 years old does not mean that they are ready for this world," he said.
While access to Eve's session with her psychiatrist could be subject to state privacy laws, it appears neither HIPAA nor FERPA, which are federal privacy laws, would have prevented the school from telling her parents about the alleged sexual assault.
