The ex-wife of a prominent Southern California physician gunned down outside his medical clinic in a suspected murder-for-hire plot pleaded not guilty Monday to murder charges.

Ahang Mirshojae, 54, of Calabasas, faces murder charges alongside alleged hitman Evan Hardman, 42, of Tomball, Texas, in the Aug. 23, 2024, slaying of her ex-husband, Dr. Hamid Mirshojae.

Detectives testified that the deadly plot stemmed from deep-seated jealousy after the victim remarried and had a new child. According to police testimony, Hardman confessed that Ahang Mirshojae initially paid him to assault the doctor in May 2024 to steal two sentimental watches, but became furious when the attack failed to yield the timepieces.

Hardman told investigators she later raised the stakes in an Agoura Hills meeting, offering him $400,000 to execute the doctor. "I want to take him all the way out," she allegedly told the gunman, who claimed she reacted "as if she had won the Super Bowl" after the fatal shooting and handed over a bag of cash.

Police say a masked assailant ambushed Dr. Mirshojae in a commercial parking lot in the 5900 block of Topanga Canyon Boulevard in Woodland Hills, executing him at close range with a gunshot to the head as he walked to his SUV. Prosecutors previously branded the execution-style attack "an assassination."

Both Ahang Mirshojae and Hardman have remained jailed without bail since their December 2024 arrests. Hardman is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday.

A judge previously dismissed murder charges against two co-defendants for lack of evidence. One co-defendant, Sarallah Jawed, 28, pleaded no contest to assault and robbery for the initial May 2024 attack and was sentenced to three years in state prison, while charges against the alleged getaway driver were dropped.

Dr. Mirshojae had spent three decades working between emergency care and addiction medicine, with his patients including “celebrities, movie stars, athletes,” according to his website.