Judge says police violated murdered BC mom's rights during home search

Nearly four years before 32-year-old Ramina Shah was stabbed to death in a Coquitlam parkade, she was sitting down to write an exam at the University of British Columbia when she got a distressing phone call.

Minutes before her exam began on March 15, 2018, she learned that police had arrested her then-husband Bobby Shah (also known as Bahman Djebelibak) in connection with alleged fraud crimes.

Bobby was home alone caring for their one-year-old daughter, and now the only people supervising the infant were police officers.

Ramina raced back to her Maple Ridge home, calling a friend during the 80-minute journey to pick up her daughter for her. But according to a February 2021 decision from Judge David St. Pierre, police wouldn’t give the daughter to the friend.

When Ramina arrived it took officers nearly an hour to reunite her with her child. Police apparently barred Ramina from entering the home, concerned that she would interfere with the search and seizure being conducted. BC’s Civil Forfeiture Office believed the $2.8 million home and luxury vehicles on the property were proceeds of crime.

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The baby was without either parent for nearly three hours after Bobby was arrested. When she was finally handed to Ramina she was apparently soaked in urine because no one had changed her.

Treatment of the couple’s daughter was one of several reasons why Judge St. Pierre deemed the raid on Bobby’s home and business to be in breach of their civil rights.

“The unexplained failure to immediately reunite the infant child with a parent who has attended the search warrant scene goes to the reasonableness of the manner in which the search warrant was executed and is therefore properly characterized as [a Charter] breach,” St. Pierre wrote.

Bobby, who went by several aliases, would allegedly befriend young men and convince them he was a wealthy businessman who wanted to avoid paying taxes. He would allegedly enlist his victims to purchase expensive items for him, give him cash, or open lines of credit he could use. In return, Bobby apparently gave them cheques worth more than what they’d paid.

But the cheques were fraudulent, court documents suggest.  Victims would apparently be left with deficits in their (or their parents’) bank accounts, at which point Bobby would allegedly cut off communication and move on to a new victim.

Bobby has been charged with fraud before, and has criminal convictions for using counterfeit money, using credit card data without permission, and obstructing a peace officer between 2000 and 2008. He’s also been charged alongside reported gang members.

The latest alleged fraud scheme police were investigating had offences happening between 2015 and 2018. There were 29 complainants identified by police.

Some victims provided receipts or descriptions of what they’d purchased for Bobby, and officers obtained a search warrant to try and find those specific items at Bobby’s Maple Ridge home and Hollywood Vape Labs business in Coquitlam.

But the problem, as Judge St. Pierre put it, was that officers seized the entire haystack while looking for needles. Officers seized three additional vehicles from the property not outlined in their list, and took nearly all furniture in the home after finding receipts from The Brick in the name of one victim’s father — despite the father never reporting a crime to police.

In addition, police apparently didn’t hold on to the seized material until trial. Instead, they began redistributing it to victims — which Judge St. Pierre said was not due protocol. Although officers made efforts to match items to rightful owners, in one instance Bobby’s personal cellphone was mistakenly given to a victim.

“The negligent failure of the police to follow the important post search procedure … constitutes a clear breach of the applicant’s rights,” St. Pierre wrote.

St. Pierre also found that aerial photos taken of the couple’s property without a warrant violated their right to privacy in their home.

The BC Civil Forfeiture Office halted its seizure application after St. Pierre’s decision, and returned the home and seized vehicles to the Shahs. Land title documents suggest the seven-bedroom Maple Ridge home is now solely owned by Bobby.

The couple split up sometime after their home was raided. They appeared in family court through 2021 and 2022, and Ramina began alluding to a new life on a fresh Instagram account in June 2021.

She also began working as a real estate agent with Stonehaus Realty. The firm told Daily Hive she was a loved and valued member of the team.

“[Ramina] was the type of person that lit up a room, her presence and outgoing personality was loved by everyone,” Stonehaus said. “She was dedicated to starting her new career in real estate while at the same time being an amazing mom to three young children.”

Ramina posted about her children frequently on Instagram. Moments of family fun were interspersed with with selfies and photos from nights when she dressed up with friends.

But all that stopped on January 27, 2022, when Ramina was attacked while heading home from work. The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team is still asking for dashcam footage from the Austin Avenue area that afternoon.

Police have said Ramina’s murder was targeted, but they don’t believe it’s related to gang conflict. No suspects have been arrested yet.

Ramina’s children are being taken care of by their grandparents, and an online fundraiser in her memory has collected more than $28,000 to help with their care.

“Thank you so much for everyone who has supported and donated so far,” the GoFundMe organizers wrote in a February 4 update. “Our girl was trying to change her life.”

Anyone with knowledge about what happened to Ramina can contact police at 1-877-551-4448 or by email at [email protected].