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Suspect Who Famously Escaped OC Jail Convicted In Plot To Abduct, Sexually Mutilate Pot Dispensary Owner

NEWPORT BEACH (CBSLA) – One of the three inmates who made a brazen escape from the Orange County Jail back in 2016 was convicted Friday of hatching a violent abduction plot in 2012 which a Newport Beach marijuana dispensary owner was tortured and had his penis slashed off.

Hossein Nayeri
FILE -- Hossein Nayeri was taken into custody in San Francisco on Jan. 30, 2016, after escaping from the Orange County Jail eight days prior.

After four days of deliberations, a Newport Beach jury found 40-year-old Hossein Nayeri guilty of two counts of kidnapping for ransom, and one count each of aggravated mayhem, torture and burglary.

However, the jury did not find him guilty of an enhancement allegation of inflicting great bodily injury on one of the victim, which essentially meant the jury was unsure if Nayeri was the suspect responsible for cutting off the victim's penis.

He now faces a possible maximum sentence of life in prison without parole.

On Oct. 2, 2012, Nayeri and two other men broke into the Newport Beach home of Mary Barnes because they falsely believed one of her tenants -- a man whose name is not being released because he is the victim of a sex crime -- had a million dollars buried somewhere.

They then abducted both Barnes and the man and drove them to the Mojave Desert, prosecutors allege.

On the 90-minute two-hour drive to the desert, they whipped him with a rubber hose, scorched him with a blow-torch and poured bleach on him as they repeatedly demanded he reveal where he had buried $1 million, prosecutors say.

One of the men took out a kitchen knife and slashed off the man's penis, which was never found, the prosecutor said. They left the knife, telling Barnes if she could find it, she could free herself before dying, Senior Deputy District Attorney Heather Brown told the jury.

After they drove off, Barnes nudged her blindfold off with her knees and managed to find the knife, which she used to undo the zip ties binding her feet, but she couldn't cut off the ones on her hands, Brown said.

Unable to get her roommate free of his bonds, she ran barefoot about a mile through the desert to a highway, where a Kern County sheriff's deputy saw her and helped get the man to Antelope Valley Medical Center.

Thanks to a tip from a neighbor who had seen a suspicious truck near Barnes' home, Newport Beach police eventually identified and arrested 40-year-old Kyle Handley, 40-year-old Ryan Anthony Kevorkian and Nayeri in the crime.

Nayeri had fled to his native Iran, but was arrested in 2014 after flying to Prague in the Czech Republic.

Handley has since been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility for parole for his part in the crimes. Kevorkian is awaiting trial.

Then, in January of 2016, while awaiting trial in this case, Nayeri staged a daring escape from the O.C. County Men's Central Jail in Santa Ana with two other inmates and remained on the lam for eight days before being captured in San Francisco.

It was the first escape in nearly three decades from the O.C. jail, built in 1968.

(© Copyright 2019 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. City News Service contributed to this report.)

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