Three more arrested in Newport kidnapping
Authorities this week took three people into custody in connection with the kidnapping, torture and genital mutilation of a Newport Beach man last year, prosecutors announced.
Newport Beach police detectives arrested Ryan Anthony Kevorkian, 34, and Naomi Josette Kevorkian, 33, in Fresno Friday. FBI agents arrested Hossein Nayeri, 34, Thursday in Prague, Czech Republic, where he is facing extradition, according to a news release from the Orange County district attorney’s office.
Police first arrested Kyle Shirakawa Handley of Fountain Valley in October 2012 in connection with the crime after his name was linked to a suspicious car parked outside the victim’s home on the day of the alleged kidnapping.
The four are charged with two felony counts of kidnapping for ransom and one felony count each of aggravated mayhem, torture and first degree residential burglary, with a sentencing enhancement for inflicting great bodily injury. They are being held without bail and, if convicted, face up to life in state prison without the possibility of parole, the release stated.
Handley pleaded not guilty to all charges last month.
In October 2012, a 29-year-old man and 53-year-old woman were kidnapped from separate rooms at a Balboa Peninsula home. The man was beaten, burned with a torch, doused with bleach and had his penis severed. Both victims were then bound and left in the desert in Kern County.
The motive of the crime centers around the male victim’s lucrative marijuana dispensary business, authorities said.
Just before the crime, the victim took several marijuana growers, from whom he purchased the drug for his dispensary, to Las Vegas for an “extravagant and expensive” weekend. Handley was allegedly one of the growers on the trip, the release stated.
After the weekend in Las Vegas, Handley is accused of telling his friends, Nayeri and Ryan Kevorkian, that the victim was wealthy. The three are also accused of devising a plan to kidnap and rob the victim.
They allegedly planted video surveillance outside the man’s home and followed him during his trips to the desert, where they believed he was burying large amounts of money.
Police assert that on Oct. 2, 2012, Handley, Nayeri and Ryan Kevorkian entered the male victim’s home, zip tied his wrists and beat him. The trio is also accused of zip-tying and kidnapping the girlfriend of the male victim’s roommate, who happened to be home, the press release stated.
After being left in the Mojave desert, the woman, who was not physically harmed, walked more than a mile in the dark before a Kern County sheriff’s deputy found her, the release stated.
Handley, Nayeri and Ryan Kevorkian are accused of fleeing the scene and taking the victim’s penis with them so that it couldn’t be reattached.
Police believe Naomi Kevorkian helped plan the kidnapping and torture.
After the crime, Nayeri allegedly fled to Iran. He was arrested by the FBI in an airport in Prague while transferring flights from Iran to Spain to visit family.