Former Istanbul Sofra restaurant owner testifies on his own behalf in sexual assault trial

Shortly after Adnan Pehlivan entered Kopy’s Bar on the South Side on May 15, 2018, he bought shots for himself and the women next to him.

Then he bought another round.

And another.

Each time, video surveillance from inside the bar showed, the group would say “cheers.” While the women drank their shots, Pehlivan appeared to take a sip, and then secretly dumped the rest out — twice into a used glass in front of him, and once onto the bar.

Pehlivan testified Friday on cross-examination that he didn’t like the taste of the Fireball liquor.

“I didn’t want to drink anymore,” Pehlivan said.

But, he also claimed he didn’t want the young women to think he couldn’t handle his alcohol.

Assistant District Attorney Emma Schoedel appeared to be incredulous at the defendant’s explanation, and instead implied to the jury that Pehlivan was attempting to get the women drunk while he remained sober.

Pehlivan, 50, is charged with burglary, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and related counts stemming from allegations that he followed the women home that night, broke into their house on Josephine Street and sexually assaulted one of them.

Both sides have now rested in the case, and the jury will hear closing arguments on Monday.

This is the second time Pehlivan has gone on trial in the case. The first, in March 2019, ended with an acquittal on charges of simple assault and stalking, and a mistrial on the rest of the counts after jurors failed to reach a unanimous decision.

Although prosecutors played the video from inside the bar that night showing the interaction between Pehlivan and the women, it wasn’t until this trial that Schoedel broke it down and highlighted what the defendant did with the shots he kept ordering.

Twice after he poured his own drinks out, he returned the liquor to an empty shot glass and placed it back in front of the women without them knowing so that they could drink them.

“Is this behavior you would accept in your restaurant?” Schoedel asked.

Pehlivan replied that his Regent Square restaurant, Istanbul Sofra, which has since closed, did not have a liquor license.

During direct examination by defense attorney Lee Rothman, Pehlivan testified that he was having a good time with the women at the bar when one of them said to him — while her friends were in the bathroom — “‘I like you.’”

“‘I like you, too,’” Pehlivan said he responded.

The alleged victim told him: “‘I want to make out with you.’

“I wasn’t expecting that, but I said, ‘OK, how are we going to do this?’”

Pehlivan said the woman told him she didn’t want her friends to know and that he should follow her home. She refused to give him her address or phone number.

The prosecution played a video during the trial showing Pehlivan driving a BMW behind the women, and then pulling over in front of them, turning the car off and waiting until they passed, before he started moving again.

Pehlivan told the jury when he finally got to the women’s home, he waited in his car for 10 or 15 minutes like the alleged victim told him to.

Then, he claimed he walked down the steps toward their house, where the woman opened the door, held her finger to her lips to shush him, and then pulled him inside, where they began kissing.

He said they moved to her bedroom, but when they started to become intimate, Pehlivan testified that the woman grabbed him by the head and started saying, “‘Who are you?’”

“You invited me to your house. It’s me, Adnan,’” he said he responded.

“She said, ‘No, no, no.”

Pehlivan said he tried to calm the woman, and when that didn’t work he left.

The alleged victim testified on the first day of trial that she had been asleep that night when she awoke to the assault. She said she yelled, and as the man tried to run out, she grabbed him by the shirt — tearing off a piece of his t-shirt. Detectives also found buttons from his dress shirt on the floor of her home.

The torn T-shirt and a dress shirt of the same brand were found in Pehlivan’s home.

Although much of Pehlivan’s second trial was similar to the first, there was additional evidence admitted this time that was new.

During Pehlivan’s first trial, there was testimony that a print found on a side window of the women’s home leading up to the street was inconclusive. He claimed during his testimony then that he never touched that window.

However, additional analysis between the first and second trial showed it was a palm print and matched the defendant.

On Friday, Pehlivan testified that he must have touched the window when he was waiting for the woman to let him in.

“I wanted to make sure I was in the right place,” he said.