SANTA BARBARA, California—Santa Barbara County Superior Court sentenced 32-year-old Pierre Haobsh on Friday, April 15, to three consecutive counts of life in prison without the possibility of parole, followed by 75 years to life in prison.
Haobsh, representing himself, was sentenced to life more than six years after murdering Santa Barbara Herb Clinic founder 57-year-year-old Dr. Weidong“Henry”Han, his wife, Huiji“Jennie”Yu, 29; and their 5-year-old daughter Emily, reportsNoozhawk.
Henry Han (L), Emily (Center), and Jennie Han (R). Screenshots viaYouTube
Judge Brian Hill sentenced Haobsh to life in prison without parole for each murder as well as 75 years to life in prison for special allegations that the killings were willful, premeditated, deliberate, and committed by means of lying in wait; and committed for financial gain.
The Han family was found slain and wrapped in plastic in their home’s garage on Greenhill Way near Goleta on March 23, 2016, by police officers performing a welfare check. Emily was just a few days away from celebrating her 6thbirthday.
All three family members were shot to death.
During the case’s preliminary hearing, Detective Travis Henderson explained Haobsh transferred $100,000 from Han’s Wells Fargo account to a Chase bank account that was done on March 25—two days after the family’s bodies were found.
The 32-year-old murderer was found guilty of the murder charges back on November 24, 2021. However, his sentencing was delayed by a few months while Judge Hill determined whether or not to dismiss Haobsh’s previous public defenders from the case.
Haobsh filed two motions seeking a new trial and a petition for writ of habeas corpus. Haobsh wanted a new trial so that he could represent himself due to“ineffective assistance of counsel.”
However, Hill ultimately denied both motions, according toNoozhawk.
“Your trial counsel was superb. … Your attorneys worked so hard on this case,”Judge Hill told Haobsh.“It’s incredible to me that you would even raise the suggestion of ineffective assistance of counsel.”
“I was fortunate to have a very close friendship to Dr. Han. … The family is devastated and the impact, the pain, and suffering is unbearable,”said Han family friend Donald Goldberg in a victim-impact statement in Superior Court Friday.“It is my hope that there will be some sense of closure to friends, family, and the community, although there will always be a sense of sorrow in the loss of Henry, Jennie, and Emily.”
Clues quickly pointed to Pierre Haobsh, now 32, a bizarre figure in the Hans’ orbit. Haobsh, who described himself as an entrepreneur and “basically a billionaire,” was possibly trying to enter into a business relationship with Han, a popular Chinese herbalist. In text messages obtained by law enforcement, Haobsh bragged about having a Lamborghini and a private jet; in reality, he was living with his father in a modest apartment near San Diego. (To add to the oddity of Haobsh’s murky backstory, his father was reportedly a “Jordanian-born U.S. citizen hired by the CIA in the late 1980s and early ’90s to meet with Saddam Hussein’s weapons-procurement officers,” and his sisteris a beauty blogger who appeared on the reality show “Newlyweds: The First Year.”)
The exact nature of Han and Haobsh’s business partnership is not clear, but Han, who maintained a patient list of 13,000 people, was reportedly working on cannabis products. Detectives said that during a search of the Han home, they found a Trader Joe’s bag containing a document for Obsidian Teradyne LLC, signed by both men the day before the Hans’ murder.
Until his arrest, American-born Pierre Haobsh lived with his French-born father, Frederick Smith, or Frederick Haobsh, in rented rooms of an Oceanside house. Not much is known about Frederick, but online searches show he founded the now-defunct oil company Cal Tech International Inc. and was an ex-CIA agent of Jordanian descent. The younger Haobsh left a scarce Internet trail (he had a Facebook page with one profile picture visible to the public).
Nadine Courtney, a beauty blogger and former Newlyweds reality TV star, told the Associated Press via email Saturday that she is Haobsh’s sister. “Nadine came from a traditional Circassian-Middle Eastern family,” reads her online biography. In a 2008 blog post, Courtney said their mother, Nancy Berchtold Haobsh, 55, had died from lymphatic cancer.
This week, documents fell into my lap that provided more detail. They confirmed Han and Haobsh had been trying to start a new business venture — Molecular Scientific, LLC — together shortly before the murders. The executive summary of the business plan listed six principals — Haobsh and Han being just two — to create “a high tech nutraceutical and pharmaceutical company” combining Chinese herbal medicine with medicinal marijuana and hemp oil tinctures known as CBDs, plus a line of cosmetic skin-care products relying on a stem-cells-culture serum.
According to sources close to the clinic, Han was hoping to make big bucks on the skin care cream and use the proceeds to underwrite an innovative new cancer treatment mixing CBDs — compounds extracted from hemp and pot plants said to have a wide range of powerful healing properties and that don’t induce euphoria — and traditional Chinese herbal formulations. It’s an intriguing one-two punch that combines his mother’s skills as a pioneer in the treatment of uterine cancer and his father’s gifts as a caring dermatologist. Word has it that Han’s longtime medical mentor in China had just completed a clinical trial using a new herbal formulation to fight unspecified cancers. Han had asked for a sample and was reportedly expecting delivery the very week he was killed. If true, that would seem like an interesting coincidence.
The Molecular Scientific prospectus displayed a keen awareness of marijuana’s evolving legal status. The author exclaimed over the potential profits if and when pot becomes legal. The U.S. pot market was estimated at $2.6 billion in 2014, it read, and was projected to grow to $35 billion in a few years. The author optimistically estimated it could grow to as much as $100 billion. The plan was to establish the new company as both manufacturer and name-brand retailer of high-quality but relatively low-cost CBD-infused oils from pot or hemp plants depending on their legal status. The projected start-up cost for this venture was pegged at $2 million.
Of the six principals named, Han is dead and Haobsh is in jail. I spoke with two others, but neither wanted to talk. One has run a high-profile business in Goleta from which he is now retired; he declined to be interviewed, explaining mistakes made by news reporters have a way of getting people seriously hurt. In googling this individual, I was struck by the large number of civic organizations with which he’s been actively involved. I was also struck by a conspicuous dearth of images. Maybe that’s also peculiar. Maybe not. The other ran a nationally based clothing company headquartered here for many years. He likewise was not eager to talk. He’d attended only one meeting, he said, and expressed surprise his name had been listed as a principal. The impression they gave is that Molecular Scientific was a short-lived entrepreneurial belch that’s subsequently morphed into something else involving other people. Maybe some of them, I was told, would be willing to talk with me. Who knows? Maybe they will. But if the tables were turned, I doubt I’d talk to me. And if I did, I’d consider that pretty damn peculiar.
