A convicted torturer and former worldwide fugitive accused of masterminding an audacious 2016 escape from an Orange County jail was sentenced Friday, March 24, to 2 years and eight months behind bars for his function within the headline-grabbing jailbreak.
Every week after an Orange County Superior Courtroom jury convicted Hossein Nayeri of collaborating within the brazen break-out from the Males’s Central jail in Santa Ana and additionally discovered him responsible of stealing a van whereas on the lam, Nayeri’s prolonged authorized journey seems to have come to an finish.
This case received’t probably have an effect on Nayeri a lot — he was already sentenced to a life in jail.
Over the previous decade Nayeri, now 44, has turn out to be one in all Orange County’s most infamous inmates, a person District Legal professional Todd Spitzer just lately described as “one in all America’s most harmful criminals,” who previous prosecutors have known as a “psychopath,” a “really diabolical felony” and in comparison with the fictional Hannibal Lecter.
Orange County Superior Courtroom Decide Larry Yellin, only a block away from the place escape occurred, cited the delicate nature of the jailbreak whereas handing down what was successfully the utmost sentenced obtainable below present state regulation. Yellin additionally dismissed a number of remaining drug-related instances filed towards Nayeri whereas he was behind bars.
“‘Shawshank Redemption’ had nothing on you guys,” Yellin instructed Nayeri, referring to a tenacious jail escape within the 1994 movie. “It performed out like a film.”
Nayeri didn't converse throughout Friday’s listening to. He saved his eyes downcast whereas seated subsequent to his legal professional, retaining his arms in his go well with’s pockets as he was led out and in of the courtroom.
Nayeri has freely admitted to breaking out of the jail with two fellow escapees, kicking off an intense weeklong manhunt that ended with all three males again in custody. However, throughout his trial, Nayeri repeatedly denied abducting and holding towards his will an impartial taxi driver who drove the three to numerous accommodations in Southern California and the Bay Space whereas on the run.
Nayeri, previous to his most up-to-date trial, was already serving a number of jail phrases of life with out the potential for parole for masterminding one of the vital violent and surprising Orange County crimes in current reminiscence.
In 2012, Nayeri and two highschool mates kidnapped a marijuana dispensary proprietor and brutally tortured him as they tried to get him to show over a non-existent $1 million that they had come to imagine he had buried within the Mojave Desert. They beat him with plastic tubing, Tased him and burned the person with a blowtorch earlier than chopping his penis off and leaving him certain within the desert. A girl who was additionally kidnapped escaped and located a regulation enforcement officer, probably saving each of their lives. The lacking physique half was by no means discovered.
Nayeri fled to his native Iran earlier than police identifed him as a suspect. His then-wife — who unbeknownst to Nayeri was cooperating with police — persuaded him to journey to a different nation the place he could possibly be arrested and extradited again to the US.
As soon as in native custody, Nayeri was housed in a dorm-style unit inside the Males’s Central Jail, a part of the Central Jail Advanced positioned alongside the Sheriff’s Division’s headquarters within the Civic Middle close to downtown Santa Ana.
Nayeri spent months working with different inmates — together with his eventual fellow escapees Bac Tien Duong and Jonathan Tieu — on a plan to interrupt out. Nayeri would movie it on a smuggled cellphone.
The inmates reduce by way of half-inch metal bars to entry plumbing tunnels. They crafted makeshift ropes out of bedsheets to entry the jail’s roof. On at the least two events they made their technique to the roof so they may use the makeshift ropes to tug up backpacks filled with provides that included precise rope and cellphones. Duong had gotten a buddy to convey the contraband to only exterior the jail.
On Jan. 22, 2016, within the early-morning hours, the three males used the ropes to rappel down the five-story jail after which slipped away right into a Santa Ana neighborhood.
Nayeri continued to name the pictures, prosecutors have stated.
The escapees have been scooped up by a buddy of Duong’s. Then, prosecutors say, they contacted an unsuspecting, unlicensed taxi driver named Lengthy Ma, who would testify to driving the lads to Rosemead earlier than they pulled a gun on him.
Ma described the escapees holding him towards his will for 5 days as they moved from a collection of accommodations, first in Rosemead after which transferring to San Jose in each Ma’s car and a van Duong had stolen in Los Angeles. Pressure between Nayeri and Duong exploded in a violent confrontation in a Bay Space lodge room over whether or not to kill the taxi driver, Prosecutors say. Ma credited Duong with saving his life, and stated he persuaded Duong to drive the 2 of them again to Orange County so Duong may flip himself in.
A day later, Nayeri and Tieu have been arrested in San Francisco.
Nayeri, in testimony, described the taxi driver not as an unwilling kidnap sufferer — however as confederate who agreed to ferry the escapees away from Southern California and home them as they tried to elude regulation enforcement for $10,000.
In his telling, Nayer’s preliminary plan to have an unnamed man choose him up exterior the jail and take him to Los Angeles Worldwide Airport with a passport and a airplane ticket to Turkey fell aside when the would-be confederate “ghosted” him. Nayeri stated he had no selection — he would keep on with Duong and Tieu.
Nayeri denied that the escapees had a gun, and alleged that they made the journey to the Bay Space in order that Ma may speak to relations and see if they may home the three males. Nayeri stated his struggle with Duong occurred after he discovered that Duong had stolen the van in Los Angeles moderately than buying it, doubtlessly bringing extra consideration to the escapees. Nayeri’s legal professional instructed jurors that the cab driver determined to go away with Duong after realizing that he may make more cash accumulating a part of a reward for the escapees’ seize that had swelled to $200,000.
In court docket, Deputy District Legal professional David McMurrin repeatedly challenged Nayeri’s story — pointing to web searches for gun ranges at the least one of many males made within the Bay Space. The prosecutor additionally famous that 17 bullets have been present in a plastic bag inside the van after Nayeri and Tieu’s arrest, with the van’s proprietor saying he had absolutely cleared out the car earlier than it was stolen.
McMurrin instructed jurors that Nayeri and the others wanted the taxi driver: He had an ID that could possibly be used to examine them into lodge rooms and accumulate cash orders, together with money Nayeri’s grandmother wired from Iran.
The taxi driver was usually combative and indignant throughout his personal testimony in Nayeri’s current trial, at instances contradicting issues he had stated in a earlier trial and in police interviews, together with his description of the reported firearm.
Nayeri was acquitted on the kidnapping cost that carried that trial’s most severe sentence, a possible life time period.
However Nayeri had already been convicted of the kidnapping and torture of the marijuana dispensary proprietor that had landed him behind bars within the first place, and sentenced to 2 consecutive life phrases, in addition to an extra seven years to life behind bars.
Prosecutors and attorneys representing Nayeri’s co-defendants in each the torture and jail escape trials have painted him as a master-manipulator. Nayeri spent a lot of his testimony in each trials alternating between calmly denying being a mastermind and verbally sparring with prosecutors.
Duong was beforehand convicted for his function within the jail escape, together with the automotive theft and kidnapping. Ma, who credit Duong with saving his life, requested that Duong be proven mercy. A choose final 12 months sentenced Duong to twenty years in jail.
Tieu continues to be awaiting trial on the jailbreak.