FLAGLER COUNTY, Fla. – Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly said deputies arrested a man in connection with a decade-old sexual battery case after new testing and a renewed review of evidence helped investigators identify a suspect.
Staly said Kaivan Rahbar, who authorities said left Flagler County years ago and had been living in New York, was arrested this week after investigators received results from new testing. Staly said the sheriff’s office placed Rahbar on a no-fly list after getting the match and later found him as he was trying to leave the country.
Rahbar was extradited from New York to Flagler County and booked into the Flagler County Jail.
Staly said Rahbar owned a local used-car dealership in 2015 when a 19-year-old woman came in looking for a car. Investigators said Rahbar convinced her to join him for dinner to discuss a job opportunity. The woman told investigators she saw a white substance on her glass and later woke up naked beside him. She reported the incident, but Staly said drug testing at the time was inconclusive and the case was later made inactive.
In July 2025, the victim asked the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office for her case file. Staly said detectives in the major case unit reviewed the report and reopened the investigation.
“Our detectives with the major case unit reviewed the report and reopened the case as our detectives believed the case could be solved,” Staly said.
Investigators sent the victim’s 2015 blood sample for new testing, which later found Ambien in her system, authorities said. Staly said the drug was not detected in testing conducted about 10 years ago and the new results supported the victim’s account that she had been drugged.
“You needed to have that final piece of the puzzle to make the case and through updated technology and DNA analysis and bloodwork we were able to get that final piece,” Staly said.
Detective Necole Marsan, who spoke during a sheriff’s office briefing, said she spoke with the victim by phone and described her reaction to the development.
“I have spoken to the victim and she was very surprised. She broke down in tears while we were on the phone,” Marsan said, adding the victim is not in Florida and has been communicating with investigators by phone while “going through the process of healing.”
Staly said the case has prompted the agency’s cold case unit, which typically focuses on homicides, to take another look at other unsolved sexual assault cases still within the statute of limitations.
“I’ve asked my division chief to go back and look at sexual assaults that have not been solved that are not beyond the statute of limitations,” Staly said.
Rahbar is being held on no bond in the Flagler County Jail, according to the sheriff’s office.