The feds on Friday said the Iranian regime tasked an asset with surveilling and plotting to assassinate President-elect Donald J. Trump.
Authorities charged Farhad Shakeri, 51, of Iran; Carlisle Rivera, also known as Pop, 49, of Brooklyn, New York; and Jonathon Loadholt, 36, of Staten Island, New York, in connection with their alleged involvement in a plot to murder a U.S. citizen.
Rivera was arrested in Brooklyn, New York, and Loadholt was arrested in Staten Island, New York, on Thursday. Shakeri remains at large and is believed to reside in Iran.
Rivera and Loadholt made their initial appearance in the Southern District of New York yesterday and were ordered detained pending trial.
“There are few actors in the world that pose as grave a threat to the national security of the United States as does Iran,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “The Justice Department has charged an asset of the Iranian regime who was tasked by the regime to direct a network of criminal associates to further Iran’s assassination plots against its targets, including President-elect Donald Trump.
“We have also charged and arrested two individuals who we allege were recruited as part of that network to silence and kill, on U.S. soil, an American journalist who has been a prominent critic of the regime,” Garland added. “We will not stand for the Iranian regime’s attempts to endanger the American people and America’s national security.”
