Fresno lawyer remembers time with escaped OC inmate

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Authorities say two of the three men who broke out of an Orange County jail may be headed to Fresno.

Twenty-year-old Jonathan Tieu and 37-year-old Hossein Nayeri remain on the run.

Local authorities are actively looking for both runaways but a Fresno lawyer connected to one of them says the suspect, who happens to be a Clovis West High School graduate, is doing exactly what he did more than 10 years ago.

Nayeri charged shortly after the incident posted bail and then fled the county. It's not the first time for Nayeri, who is now at the center of a massive manhunt ran from the law.

Roger Bonakdar would know, he represents a Fresno family who lost their son back in 2005 in a DUI crash where Nayeri was the driver and their son was his passenger. "They naturally have some concerns about Nayeri," Bonakdar said. "But, again, everything Nayeri is facing, charged for, has nothing to do with the Toussi family.

This time, it has to do with the kidnapping of a California marijuana dispensary owner. It happened in 2012 and Nayeri allegedly drove the owner to a desert spot where he mutilated him.

Police believe an Orange County jail ESL teacher provided Nayeri with the means to escape. "Nayeri, apparently, wrote a letter to the judge at the time he was sentenced to the Madera matter Bonakdar said. "If all that is true then the idea that he would need to have interactions with an ESL teacher is, at a minimum, curious.

Now law enforcement is curious where Nayeri could be.