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LOS ANGELES (CNS) — One of two men charged with murder in the shooting death of a doctor after he left his medical practice in Woodland Hills, in what authorities believe may be a murder for hire, is set to be arraigned Monday in a downtown courtroom.
Sarallah Jawed, 26, is expected to go before a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge Monday morning, three days after he and 41-year-old Evan Hardman, who was arrested in Texas, were charged in the Aug. 23 slaying of 61-year-old Dr. Hamid Mirshojae, who was pronounced dead in a parking lot in the 5900 block of Topanga Canyon Boulevard, near Warner Center Park.
Meanwhile, the victim’s ex-wife and another man have also been arrested on suspicion of murder. A third defendant, Ashley Rose Sweeting, is charged with being an accessory after the fact.
Jawed and Hardman are each facing a special-circumstance allegation of murder for financial gain.
Jawed, of Canoga Park, was arrested Wednesday by the Los Angeles Police Department’s fugitive unit and remains behind bars without bail, according to jail records.
Legal documents are revealing a stormy relationship between the Woodland Hills doctor killed in an ambush shooting in August and his ex-wife who is accused of involvement in a murder-for-hire plot leading to his death.
Hardman is also facing a special-circumstance allegation of murder by means of lying in wait, along with allegations that he personally and intentionally discharged a firearm and that he has a string of robbery convictions in Los Angeles County dating back to 2002, according to the complaint.
Hardman and Jawed were also charged with one count each of assault with a deadly weapon in connection with an alleged baseball bat attack May 3 on Mirshojae.
Hardman, identified as a resident of Tomball, Texas, was arrested Tuesday in the Houston area by deputies from the Harris County Sheriff’s Department, according to Los Angeles police. He remains in custody there while awaiting extradition, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.
Sweeting, 40, of Reseda, was arrested Tuesday and pleaded not guilty Thursday to one count of being an accessory after the fact, along with an allegation that she has one or more prior serious or violent felony convictions.
Deputy District Attorney Ben Schwartz told Superior Court Judge Susan J. De Witt that Sweeting allegedly drove the shooter to and from the crime scene in a “situation that appeared to be a murder for hire.” She has a string of criminal convictions for offenses including first-degree burglary and grand theft and is on diversion in a carjacking case, the prosecutor said.
Sweeting was ordered to remain jailed on $1 million bail. She is due back in court Dec. 24.
Meanwhile, LAPD investigators on Thursday raided a sprawling mansion in the 5500 block of Newcastle Lane in a Calabasas gated community believed to be owned by Mirshojae’s ex-wife, Ahang Zarrin Kelk.
The LAPD confirmed late Thursday that the ex-wife — whom they identified as Ahang Mirshojae, 53 — was arrested on suspicion of murder. Another man, 46-year-old Shawn Randolph of Valley Village, was also arrested Thursday on suspicion of murder in connection with the case.
No details were provided on their specific alleged roles in the killing. Both were being held without bail, pending word on criminal charges.
According to police, Hamid Mirshojae was walking to his vehicle in the parking lot of his Woodland Hills medical clinic at about 5:30 p.m. Aug. 23. When he approached the driver side of his vehicle, “a masked man emerged from hiding around the corner of the clinic and ran toward him,” police said in a statement. “From a close distance, the suspect fired at Doctor Mirshojae in an ambush-style attack and then immediately fled back toward the rear of the clinic away from the scene.”
Police said Thursday they believe the five people arrested so far in the case “conspired to commit murder, culminating in the ambush and subsequent demise of Doctor Mirshojae.”
“It should be noted that the investigation remains ongoing, including determining the relationship some of the involved may have shared with the victim,” according to the LAPD.
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