The Justice Department announced charges Friday against three men, including an Iranian citizen who authorities say was charged by the Iranian government with plotting to assassinate Donald Trump before the 2024 election.
What does the complaint say?
According to a criminal complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan, 51-year-old Farhad Shakeri of Iran was ordered in September by an official of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — designated a foreign terrorist organization by the United States — to devise a plan to surveil and kill Trump before this week’s election.
If Shakeri couldn’t come up with a plan within that time frame, the complaint alleges that the official told Shakeri that the IRGC would “pause” its plan to kill Trump until after the election because the official believed Trump would lose and that this would happen. “easier” to kill him then.
On October 7, it is alleged that Shakeri told the FBI that he had no intention of proposing a plan to assassinate Trump within the seven days requested by the IRGC official.
The charges allege that Iran is “actively targeting” US citizens to avenge the death of Qassem Soleimani, commander of the IRGC’s Qods Force, who was killed by a drone strike in Baghdad in January 2020.
Two others charged with murder-for-hire plot
Shakeri and two other men Carlisle Rivera, aka Pop, 49, of Brooklyn, NY; and Jonathon Loadholt, 36, of Staten Island, NY, were also charged in connection with their alleged involvement in a plot to assassinate a prominent Iranian-American journalist, described in the complaint as an “outspoken critic of Iran’s regime’ and ‘target of multiple previous kidnapping and/or assassination plots led by the government of Iran.”
Masih Alinejad identified himself as the journalist the men allegedly targeted after the charges were revealed. (Last month, U.S. prosecutors charged four men, including a senior IRGC member, in connection with a failed 2022 plot to kill Alinejad.)
The complaint details messages and photos shared by the three men while they surveilled the journalist, also known as Victim-1, outside her Brooklyn home and at an event at Fairfield University in Connecticut.
According to the FBI, Shakeri “sent Rivera a series of voice notes discussing their efforts to locate and kill Victim 1.” In one voice, Shakeri told Rivera that Victim-1 spent most of her time in certain locations in her home, telling Rivera that “you just have to be patient… You have to wait and be patient to catch her when she enters the house or comes out, or follows her somewhere and takes care of it. Don’t even think about going in. It’s a suicide mission. ”
What charges do they face?
Shakeri, Rivera and Loadholt have all been charged with murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and money laundering. The murder-for-hire charge carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. Money laundering carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.
Shakeri has also been charged with conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization, and conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and sanctions against the government of Iran. Each charge carries a maximum prison sentence of 20 years.
Shakeri is believed to be in Tehran and remains at large, the FBI said. Rivera and Loadholt made their first court appearance Thursday and were held pending trial.
Trump has not yet publicly commented on the matter.
What did the DOJ and FBI say?
“Few actors in the world pose as serious a threat to the national security of the United States as Iran,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a press release announcing the charges. “The Department of Justice has charged an asset of the Iranian regime who was directed by the regime to direct a network of criminal associates to further Iran’s assassination plots against its targets, including newly elected President Donald Trump .”
“The charges announced today expose Iran’s continued brazen efforts to target American citizens, including President-elect Donald Trump, other government leaders and dissidents who criticize the regime in Tehran,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement. “The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has conspired with criminals and assassins to attack and shoot Americans on American soil, and that simply will not be tolerated. Thanks to the FBI’s hard work, their deadly plans were disrupted.”
