Hassein Nayeri Kidnapped and Tortured a Man All Because He Believed There Was Buried Treasure
Hossein Nayeri is serving some major prison time but first, an escape.
Published Feb. 3 2025, 1:06 p.m. ET
In August 2019, Hossein Nayeri was convicted of two felony counts of kidnapping for ransom, and one felony count of torture. The crimes occurred in October 2012, when Nayeri and another man abducted the owner of a marijuana dispensary, along with his roommate's girlfriend. They believed the owner had buried $1 million in the Mojave Desert.
The victims, known only as John and Jane Doe, survived, but John was severely disfigured. He would later spend months in the hospital recovering from his injuries. Nayeri was sentenced to three life sentences without the possibility of parole. Where is he now? Here's what we know.
Where is Hossein Nayeri now?
Nayeri is serving his three life sentences at Salinas Valley State Prison, in Soledad, Calif. His co-defendant, Kyle Shirakawa Handley, was convicted in 2018 of two felony counts of kidnapping for ransom, one felony count of aggravated mayhem, and one felony count of torture. He is serving two life sentences without parole, plus 14 years. Handley is incarcerated at California State Prison, Centinela in Imperial, Calif.
According to the Orange County District Attorney's Office, Handley grew and sold marijuana to John, who took several marijuana growers to Las Vegas for a lavish weekend getaway sometime before October 2012. Upon his return, Hadley told Nayeri and another friend, Ryan Kevorkian, that John was extremely well off. That's when the three of them devised the plan to kidnap the marijuana dispensary owner.
In the weeks leading up to the abduction, the three men began watching John's home as well as following him. They took note of the fact that he made frequent trips to the Mojave Desert. John was working on an investment deal, but Nayeri and Handley came to believe he was actually burying large sums of cash.
On Oct. 2, 2012, Nayeri, Handley, and Kevorkian broke into John's Newport Beach home where they zip-tied and beat him. They then took John, as well as Jane Doe, and drove them to the desert. While out there, they beat him again, burned him with a blow torch, and severed the injured man's penis. They then poured bleach on John in an effort to clean off any DNA. Jane was not injured but eventually managed to free herself in order to get help.
Hossein Nayeri escaped from jail while awaiting his trial.
In January 2016, while awaiting trial, Nayeri and two other men escaped from Orange County Men’s Central Jail, per the Associated Press. The trio smuggled tools they used to cut through half-inch bars on a metal grate in their maximum-security dorm cell, then crawled through plumbing shafts in order to reach the jail's roof. From there they rappelled down five stories using ropes fashioned out of bed linens. Somehow Nayeri had a cell phone he used to record the escape.
They kidnapped an unlicensed taxi driver and forced him to drive them around from motel to motel. The men also stole a van which, along with the taxi and its driver, they used to drive hundreds of miles north to San Jose, Calif. An arrest was made the following day after a good samaritan in San Francisco recognized two of the men from media reports.