A man who was kidnapped and tortured has recounted the horrifying moment he was dragged from his bed and subjected to brutal treatment, culminating in his penis being severed by his captors.
Michael, a medical marijuana dispensary owner, and his housemate Mary Barnes were abducted from their home in Newport Beach, California in 2012.
They were blindfolded, gagged, and had their ankles and wrists bound before being forced into a van by their kidnappers, who drove them 140 miles into the desert. Once there, the group of four assailants began to threaten and torture the pair, demanding that Michael reveal the location of a hidden cache of money.
When Michael denied knowing anything about the money, his enraged captors cut off his penis with a knife and doused him with bleach. The gang then abandoned the pair in the desert, still bound.
They inadvertently left behind a knife, which Mary used to free herself. She then walked barefoot through the desert to the nearest road, where she flagged down a police car.
Both victims were eventually rescued, and Michael – who has chosen not to disclose his surname – required immediate surgery for penile amputation. His genitals were never found, reports the Mirror.
The kidnappers, who were led by the scheming Hossein Nayeri, believed Michael had buried $1 million (£800,000) in the desert. Despite his assertions that he hadn’t, the captors tortured him, insisting that he would eventually divulge the location of the supposed hidden treasure.
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Michael recounted his harrowing experience to ABC for the documentary series ‘Wicked Game: The Devil in the Desert’, revealing how one night, shortly after sleeping, he awoke to a chilling sensation: “I left the shop at 11.30pm so I was in bed by 12am, 12.15am I passed out on the little couch futon thing.
“The next thing I remember is being sound asleep with my face in the pillow and feeling something cold and metallic press against the back of my neck and it was the barrel of a pistol. My first thought was, oh no something really bad is going to happen.”
Nayeri escaped to Iran initially but was caught in the Czech Republic and later extradited. In 2020, he received two life sentences without parole for kidnapping and an additional consecutive seven years for torture.
His co-defendants, Kyle Handley, Ryan Kevorkian and Naomi Kevorkian, were also imprisoned for their involvement in the crime.
However, the subsequent year saw Nayeri and two accomplices pull off a bold prison escape. They used contraband tools to saw through the half-inch bars of their maximum-security cell’s metal grate, then navigated through the building’s plumbing shafts to reach the rooftop.
From there, they descended using ropes fashioned from bed sheets. The trio then commandeered a 72 year old unlicensed taxi driver at gunpoint, forcing him to be their getaway driver.
Nayeri and one other escapee were apprehended the following day in San Francisco, earning them an additional sentence of two years and eight months. A new documentary film, available for streaming on Hulu in the US, promises fresh evidence, police body cam and dash cam footage, as well as new interviews with victims, suspects, and those instrumental in prosecuting the kidnappers.
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