The U.S. government has charged an Iranian man with plotting to assassinate Donald Trump before he was elected president.
The Justice Department on Friday unsealed the indictment against 51-year-old Farhad Shakeri, alleging he was tasked with coming up with a plan to kill Trump.
The U.S. government said Mr. Shakeri had not been arrested and was believed to be in Iran.
In a criminal complaint filed in a Manhattan court, prosecutors alleged that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard instructed Shakeri in September to devise a plan to monitor and kill Trump.
“The Department of Justice has charged an asset of the Iranian regime who was tasked by the regime with directing a criminal sympathizer network to further Iran’s assassination plot, including that of President-elect Donald Trump,” said U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland. name.
The Justice Department also charged two other people who allegedly recruited to kill an American journalist who had been an outspoken critic of Iran.
The others were identified by the Justice Department as Carlisle Rivera, also known as “Pop,” 49, of Brooklyn, and Jonathan Rodholt, 36, of Staten Island.
The two appeared Thursday in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and remain in custody pending trial.
President Trump has faced two assassination attempts this year. Last July, a gunman shot the former president at a rally in Pennsylvania, grazing his ear.
Then, last September, a man was arrested for pointing a rifle at Trump while he was playing golf at a West Palm Beach golf course.
According to the indictment, Shekeri was asked to come up with a plan to kill Trump within seven days.
According to prosecutors, Mr. Shakeri told law enforcement that he did not intend to propose a plan to kill Trump within seven days, so Iranian Revolutionary Guard officials paused the plan.
Shakeri told prosecutors that the Iranian government told him it would be easier to attempt an assassination after the election because it believed Trump would lose.
Prosecutors described Mr. Shakeri as an Afghan national who came to the United States as a child. He was eventually deported around 2008 after spending 14 years in prison for robbery.
Prosecutors said the 51-year-old used a “network of criminal associates” in prison, including Mr. Rivera and Mr. Rodholt, to spy on Iranian government targets.
Prosecutors alleged that Shakeri promised Rivera and Rodholt $100,000 to kill an American journalist who had reported on the Iranian regime’s human rights abuses and corruption. The unnamed reporter has been targeted in the past, prosecutors said.
In a social media post Friday, Brooklyn-based journalist Marcy Alinejad said the FBI had arrested two men who attempted to kill her. She said the killers came to her home in Brooklyn.
“I came to the United States to exercise my First Amendment right to free speech,” Alinejad wrote. “I want to fight against tyranny, and I deserve to be safe.”
In addition to the American journalist and Trump, the indictment says the Iranian government also attempted to kill two Jewish-American businessmen living in New York City who supported Israel on social media.
Shakeri also said prosecutors had been asked by Iran to draw up plans to target and carry out mass shootings of Israeli tourists in Sri Lanka in October 2024, a year after Hamas attacked Israel.
Mr. Shakeri, Mr. Rivera and Mr. Loadholt are all charged with murder and face up to 10 years in prison. They also face money laundering conspiracy and murder-for-hire conspiracy, which could result in up to 20 years in prison.
