Jail escapee, convicted torturer Nayeri sues Orange County

The man prosecutors called the mastermind of a 2016 escape by three inmates from the Orange County jail in Santa Ana filed a claim this week against the county based on comments Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer made after he was convicted of the breakout.

Hossein Nayeri, 44, filed the claim on Wednesday seeking $25,000.

Nayeri, who was serving two consecutive terms of life in prison without the possibility of parole for his role in the sexual mutilation of a marijuana dispensary owner in a kidnapping-extortion scheme when a jury in March convicted him of the escape.

However, jurors acquitted Nayeri of kidnapping during a carjacking and other lesser-included offenses of simple kidnapping, carjacking and false imprisonment.

Nayeri’s claim accused Spitzer of “malice and ill will in his professional capacity” for comments to reporters that he made March 16 after Nayeri’s conviction for escape. Spitzer characterized Nayeri is “one of America’s most dangerous criminals” and added “he’s conniving, manipulative, and he’s a mastermind.”

Nayeri also argued that Spitzer’s “specious statements” were offered to “significantly and spitefully harm and attack” the defendant before his sentencing. Nayeri was sentenced to two years and eight months in prison for the breakout.

“While the inartful derogatory statements by District Attorney Todd Spitzer were not only both defamatory and slanderous as they were being conveyed not only to the press and local news station media representatives on hand in person, but more importantly these mean-spirited proclamations were rebroadcast countless times locally, statewide, nationwide, internationally, as well through countless social media platforms and search engines,” Nayeri wrote in the claim.

Spitzer said the claim did nothing to change his mind about Nayeri.

“My personal opinion of Mr. Nayeri remains the same — he is one of America’s most dangerous criminals,” Spitzer said in a statement. “He’s conniving, manipulative, and he’s a mastermind. He is a convicted jail escapee sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for committing crimes of extreme violence; he has nothing to lose.”

Nayeri characterized Spitzer’s remarks as a “rant thrown together haphazardly in ad hoc bungling manner as he frantically pleaded to save face in response to being constantly barraged and peppered with a series of legitimate questions from the media in attendance as to — wasn’t this trial of Nayeri a waste of taxpayers resources?”

Nayeri also criticized the use of several vehicles and a helicopter to “escort” him to prison as another waste of tax dollars.

“This unique mode of highly wasteful transportation was being utilized as an overt display of power being deployed at the expense of Orange County taxpayers, that was intended solely for the personal aggrandizement of some combination of elected officials from inside Orange County local government to inflict and send a message to Mr. Nayeri on his way out the back door of the Orange County Theo Lacy jail facility,” Nayeri said.

“Being vengefully punished for prevailing inside a courtroom on a high-profile case is a manifest and categorical abuse of authority and shameful depletion of taxpayer’s money.”

Nayeri said the money used to transport him to prison could have been better spent on local charities.

Spitzer called Nayeri’s “feigned outrage over the use of taxpayer dollars to transport him to state prison using the level of security necessary to ensure he remains incarcerated is ridiculous.”

“Nayeri couldn’t be bothered to worry about all the precious taxpayer dollars that were wasted searching for him following his escape from the Orange County Jail, but now he is livid because taxpayer monies that paid for his armed escort to state prison could have been used to help homeless veterans and single mothers,” Spitzer said. “The money the taxpayers of Orange County have invested in keeping Nayeri behind bars is worth every penny.”

More from Orange County