Marriage of Mustafa CA6

Filed 3/17/23 Marriage of Mustafa CA6 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

SIXTH APPELLATE DISTRICT

In re the Marriage of ANWAR and H050056 NANCY MUSTAFA. (Santa Clara County Super. Ct. No. 18-FL-003026) ANWAR MUSTAFA,

Appellant,

v.

OBDULIA LOPEZ,

Respondent.

Appellant Anwar Mustafa appeals from a trial court order modifying temporary child and spousal support. Mustafa asserts the order was erroneously based on unforgivable loans he had received and was obligated to repay. He contends that Family Code section 40581 does not permit loan funds to be used as income for calculating guideline child support. We conclude that Mustafa has failed to establish the factual premise for his claim of error and affirm the order.

1 Unspecified statutory references are to the Family Code.

I. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND Anwar and respondent Nancy Mustafa, who goes by the name Obdulia Lopez, had been married for 26 years when they separated in 2018. They have one adult child and one minor child, and the minor child remained in Lopez’s sole custody after separation. Anwar filed for dissolution of their marriage in July 2018. The initial December 2018 temporary child and spousal support order required Anwar to pay $1,262 a month in spousal support and $1,683 a month in child support to Lopez. In August 2020, at Anwar’s request, Anwar’s temporary child and spousal support obligations were reduced to $0 due to his asserted loss of income as a result of the pandemic. Anwar’s income was derived from his business, which operated cafeterias at three community college campuses. When the pandemic began in 2020, all of the campuses closed. At the August 2020 hearing, the court declined to consider as income to Anwar $72,000 his business had received in “Paycheck Protection Program” (PPP) funds because these funds were for business purposes. Both before and after the August 2020 order, Anwar repeatedly transferred funds from his business account to his personal account to pay his personal expenses. In November 2021, Lopez filed a request for modification of the temporary child and spousal support order. She asserted that Anwar’s prior representations that he had no business income were inaccurate because he had failed to disclose that he had received “PPP loan funds” that he had transferred from his business account to his personal account. She maintained that these transferred funds were not used for business expenses but to fund Anwar’s personal expenses. On this basis, she argued that the transferred funds were “available to him for purposes of support.” Lopez asserted that these transfers added up to $9,000 per month in income, and she sought monthly child support in the amount of $2,132. However, her expert’s analysis of Anwar’s income, based on these transfers, showed that Anwar had received an average of $3,376.16 per month in “Draws” from the business in 2021. 2