Los Angeles — Ahang Kelk stood in the back of her Woodland Hills addiction treatment center, where photographs of Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe covered the walls and a glass chandelier hovered above the sad throng. She wore all black. It was September, and she was holding a memorial for her ex-husband, Hamid Mirshojae, a doctor who had been killed in an execution-style strike just outside the parking lot a week before.
Two of her children stood stoically behind her at the service, and Kelk sobbed as she hugged family and friends. However, on Thursday, police reported the arrest of Kelk and two others – Sarallah Jawed, 26, and Shawn Randolph, 46 – in connection with the murder of her former spouse.
They’re all facing murder charges. Just two days prior, Los Angeles police had detained Ashley Rose Sweeting and Evan Hardman in connection with the killing. Police have not given a suspected reason for the crime or described their investigation, other than accusing the five of planning to assassinate Mirshojae. It is also unclear what link Kelk had with the other four accused.
Soon after her ex-husband’s death, suspicion centered on their years of dispute, as recorded in court documents. “It’s all lies,” Kelk claimed in an August interview about his suspicions. Despite the fact that she and her husband were embroiled in legal disputes, she maintained that she was not to blame for his death. She said she still cared for him. “These are civil matters and have nothing to do with his personality or who he is,” she informed me. “He is a kind man. He had begun a new life and was extremely pleased.”
Kelk wished the killer nothing but agony. “I pray he suffers for the remaining seconds he breathes. I hope his children suffer as much as mine do right now. “I hope he sees his loved ones suffering as we are now,” she said. “I am speechless. It’s dreadful. “Words cannot describe what has occurred,” she told the Los Angeles Times. “Hamid has always been a helpful and wonderful person to everyone. He never hurt anyone. He is an excellent doctor and father. “He was a good husband.”
Tension permeated the melancholy atmosphere of the ceremony. Kelk and her ex-husband had been fighting a legal struggle in court for the past 15 years, accusing each other of threatening murder. The Mirshojaes’ finances appeared to fluctuate wildly in court records: at one point, they appeared to be high-flying San Fernando Valley residents, driving an Aston Martin and a Mercedes-Benz and sending their children to expensive private schools; at another, they were accused of failing to pay legal bills and claimed they lacked funds.
Mirshojae and Kelk’s legal claims revealed complex financial issues, as well as allegations of abuse and fraud. Although the couple separated in 2009, legal proceedings relating to their divorce lasted on and off until 2024. It contains serious claims from both sides. Mirshojae and Kelk, at various points, claimed to be afraid for their lives. The two fought over real estate and child support, and Mirshojae sued his ex-wife in February, claiming she fraudulently shifted her ownership shares in various properties to avoid paying him hundreds of thousands of dollars in settlement payments and attorney expenses. The bad blood appears to have begun in the late 2000s.
Mirshojae testified that his wife was a diligent worker, a decent spouse, and a “family person” for the most of their marriage, but things changed after 2008. “She just snapped.” Maybe there’s too much pressure. Perhaps stress. “Her mindset completely changed,” Mirshojae testified in 2018. “You know, she wasn’t a typical wife or mother… She became just deceitful and dishonest.
Soon after, the couple divorced. In 2009, Mirshojae sought a restraining order against Kelk. According to court records, he claimed she had repeatedly assaulted him with both fists in their home before following him to his medical office and blocking the exit. “If I had a knife, I would stab you to death,” he said she stated. “I am fearful for my life,” the doctor stated in the restraining order application, which was granted. That was the first of three reports of violent threats between the two.
Kelk alleged in 2016, during the former couple’s protracted legal battle over their divorce, that Mirshojae threatened to kill her while wielding a bloody hunting knife. He later threatened to kill her with a knife and a gun, as well as to seek down and kill her new partner, Allen Yadegar, according to court documents. Mirshojae came to the home where she lived with their children in December of that year, she said, and told her that a blind shaman had appeared to him deep in the Wyoming woods while he was hunting, telling Mirshojae to build a castle, create moats, build an army, and remove Kelk from his life, according to her court filing.
She claimed he threatened to kill her with a knife and to shoot her. “He threatened to kill me and’split me open to make me squeal like a pig,’ brandishing a massive bloody hunting knife. He pushed me, then grabbed my arm and hand, severely hurting me,” Kelk claimed in a filing accompanying her restraining order request. Kelk supplied no evidence to support her accusations. A temporary restraining order was granted. Mirshojae made his own allegation many days later.
Kelk and Yadegar visited his clinic on December 14, 2016, according to court documents filed in connection with the divorce. “She physically assaulted me while she was there,” Mirshojae claimed. “In addition, her fiance told me he had a weapon and that he was going to kill me.” Yadegar couldn’t be reached for comment. He was never charged with any crimes connected to the allegations. Mirshojae stated that he believed his wife was suffering from mental illness. “She should be evaluated. In the deposition, he stated, “She needs help.”
Kelk’s previous relationships had resulted in charges of abuse and a lawsuit as well. After her divorce from Mirshojae, Kelk began dating Taimoor Bidari, a former Mirshojae patient. Kelk and Bidari formed a partnership to buy a Malibu condo, but when they did, Bidari claimed in court records that Kelk registered the unit in her own name.
She stated in court filings that the $630,000 Bidari gave her was for jewelry rather than the flat. However, in late 2014, a judge ordered Kelk to pay Bidari more than $1.7 million after determining that she used “fabricated and unauthentic” evidence to support her claim.
Months after the verdict, Kelk told Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies that two men attempted to kill her in her Malibu condominium. She identified the perpetrators as Joseph Mikhail and Reza Bidari, Taimoor’s son. Kelk stated in a statement to deputies that the two men followed her inside her home and Reza Bidari attempted to strangle her with the laces of two sneakers tied together. When her cousin Justin Langdon intervened, Mikhail attacked him with a knife, according to Kelk’s statement.
However, the case fell apart after a lengthy investigation by a Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department detective. “I didn’t do anything to her,” Mikhail told the Times in an interview. “None of that ever happened,” Reza Bidari stated. Taimoor Bidari couldn’t be reached for comment.
Mikhail and Reza Bidari were arrested shortly after the claimed attack, however the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office declined to prosecute the case in March 2017, citing the crime scene as fabricated. Prosecutors stated that Bidari and Mikhail had alibis and proved that they were not there at the residence when the attacks occurred.
Phone records and mobile data indicated that they were elsewhere. According to the district attorney’s report, Mirshojae also told officers that he thought his ex-wife’s story was “made up” and that she was “simply angry about losing the Malibu condominium.”
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Phillip Stirling, the deputy district attorney handling the case, in an interview. “I’ve never personally dealt with a situation where someone staged or fabricated a… home invasion assault with a lethal weapon. They are rarely faked.”
However, Stirling claimed Kelk’s details did not line up. “We didn’t believe her,” he explained. Meanwhile, Kelk and Mirshojae’s financial quarrel lasted throughout this year. After Kelk requested child support and litigation fees, Mirshojae’s attorney claimed she had a net worth of $41 million, contradicting her claims in court papers that she was impoverished. The case is still open.
