Escaped California inmates were charged with violent crimes

SANTA ANA, Calif. – Three inmates who made a daring escape from a California jail were awaiting trial on charges involving violent crimes.

Authorities said Jonathan Tieu, 20, Bac Duong, 43, and Hossein Nayeri, 37, are considered dangerous and possibly armed.

Here is a closer look at the accusations against them.

HOSSEIN NAYERI

It isn't the first time Nayeri has evaded Orange County law enforcement officials.

The FBI and Czech authorities arrested him at the Prague airport in 2013 on his way from Iran to Spain to visit family.

He was extradited to Orange County in 2014.

Authorities said Nayeri and two other people kidnapped a marijuana dispensary owner in Newport Beach in 2012 by zip-tying his wrists, beating him and putting him in a van.

They drove the man to the desert where they believed he had buried large sums of money, tortured him by burning him with a blow torch and cutting off his penis, then dumped him on the side of a road, prosecutors said.

Authorities said they found Nayeri's DNA on evidence at the home of a co-defendants.

Nayeri fled to Iran and stayed there for several months before being arrested in Prague.

He is charged with kidnapping for ransom and aggravated mayhem, torture and burglary.

JONATHAN TIEU

Tieu is charged with murder and attempted murder in a 2011 gang shooting in Garden Grove, court records show.

He was 15 when he was charged along with two other teens in the shooting death of 19-year-old Scottie Bui.

All three defendants had ties to TRG, or Tiny Rascal Gang, and had gone out looking for members of the rival gang Power of Vietnam when the shooting occurred outside a pool hall, said Lt. Robert Bogue, a police spokesman.

Tieu was transferred to the Men's Central Jail in Orange County from a juvenile facility when he turned 18.

BAC DUONG

Duong is charged with attempted murder, assault and burglary in the November shooting of a man on the front porch of a home in Santa Ana.

Duong has a criminal record that includes convictions for drug sales and possession, receiving stolen property and second degree burglary, court records show.

Federal immigration authorities want to deport him, according to the sheriff's department. Immigration authorities declined to comment.