Jurors hear grisly testimony of beatings and torture in Newport Beach kidnapping case

A medical marijuana dispensary owner who in 2012 was kidnapped from his Newport Beach home by three men who sought to steal $1 million from him told an Orange County Superior Court jury Monday about brutal beatings he endured over several hours.

The man, whom the Daily Pilot is not identifying by name because he was the victim of a sex-related crime, testified that he was stomped on, Tased, beaten and burned by his captors as they drove him and his female roommate from their home on 25th Street in Newport Beach to the Mojave Desert. Once there, the kidnappers cut off his penis.

His captors, prosecutors say, were looking for money that they mistakenly thought the man had buried in the desert. For nearly three hours, the man testified, the kidnappers demanded $1 million from him dozens of times, and when he told them he didn’t have that much, they beat and tortured him.

“I thought, ‘Am I going to die? Am I going to live?’ ” he said.

The man was one of several witnesses who testified Monday in the trial of Kyle Shirakawa Handley, a Fountain Valley resident and marijuana grower who authorities said had supplied marijuana for the dispensary owner’s business.

Handley is facing felony charges of kidnapping, aggravated mayhem and torture, with a possible sentencing enhancement on allegations of inflicting great bodily injury. He has pleaded not guilty, according to court records.

If convicted, he could face life in prison without possibility of parole.

Hossein Nayeri, 39, who also is charged in the case, grabbed headlines in 2016 when he escaped from the Orange County Jail and was captured in San Francisco after evading authorities for eight days. Nayeri is scheduled to face trial in the kidnapping case in March.

Another defendant, Ryan Kevorkian, 38, is scheduled for a pretrial hearing in January.

Kevorkian and Nayeri have pleaded not guilty, according to court records.

Prosecutors allege that after a high-rolling Las Vegas trip together in May 2012, Handley believed the dispensary owner had a large amount of money and that he hatched a plan with Nayeri and Kevorkian to steal it.

The dispensary owner said he had fallen asleep watching television the night of Oct. 2, 2012, when he was awakened by a flashlight’s bright light and a shotgun pointed at his face. He said two men beat him, zip-tied his hands and feet, blindfolded him and taped his mouth before dragging him down the stairs to the garage.

His roommate, who had moved in just days before, testified that she awoke to the cold barrel of a gun placed on the back of her neck and a man whispering in her ear that she would be OK if she was quiet and didn’t fight. She also was blindfolded, her hands and feet zip-tied and her mouth taped.

The captors placed both of them in the back of a vehicle and began driving to the desert.

“I was very scared they were going to kill us,” the woman said.

She dabbed tears from her eyes as she spoke on the witness stand, describing how she lay in the back of the vehicle unable to move as her roommate was tortured.

Eventually, the vehicle stopped on a dirt road and the men pulled them out and laid them on the ground. The dispensary owner was held down as at least one of the men pulled down his shorts and taunted him in a sing-song refrain before cutting off his penis.

Before the men left, one tossed a knife into the bushes and told the woman that if she could find it, she could cut herself free. She told jurors that she pushed up her blindfold with her knees, scooted to the bushes and cut the zip ties off her feet with her hands still bound behind her back.

She tried to cut her roommate free, but his hands were too swollen from the beatings, she testified. She walked barefoot on dirt and gravel for about 20 minutes before she made it to a highway and flagged down a sheriff’s deputy.

“It still haunts me,” she said of the ordeal.

Authorities said they caught a break in the case when the dispensary owner’s neighbor on the Balboa Peninsula provided them with the license plate number for a suspicious-looking vehicle that had been parked in the alley near the home on Oct. 1.

Investigators determined that the truck was registered to Handley, who grew up in Fresno with Nayeri and Kevorkian.

Handley’s trial is scheduled to continue this week.

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