A federal judge in Manhattan on Wednesday sentenced a man to 15 years in prison for his role in a plot to kill an Iranian dissident in 2024, another case in which the Iranian government’s global campaign to silence opponents has extended to the United States.
Carlisle Rivera, a self-employed Brooklyn pipe fitter, became the third person to be sentenced for playing a role in trying to kill Masih Alinejad, an activist and a critic of the Iranian government. Before being sentenced, Mr. Rivera apologized to “my fellow Americans” and to Ms. Alinejad, who was in court.
Ms. Alinejad also spoke on Wednesday, at times looking directly at Mr. Rivera, who gazed back at her while seated in the well of the courtroom, dressed in a tan jail uniform. While expressing bewilderment that Mr. Rivera would agree to kill a stranger, Ms. Alinejad castigated the Iranian authorities who prosecutors said had initiated multiple plots against her.
U.S. officials have said that the Iranian government has been focused for years on silencing Ms. Alinejad, who was born in Iran and worked there as a journalist before moving to the United States. The Iranian government has tried to silence critics both at home and abroad. Those efforts have more recently included plots inside the United States where prosecutors have said that figures in Iran have hired criminals — including Russian mobsters, Mexican cartel hit men and a Canadian Hells Angel — to carry out violent acts.
“Today’s sentence should be a warning to anyone who would cast their lot with the brutal Iranian regime and seek to do their murderous bidding, especially on American soil,” said Jay Clayton, the Southern District’s U.S. attorney, in a statement.
Mr. Rivera’s sentencing comes as the Iranian government has been squashing protests in Tehran and elsewhere that started to spring up about a month ago, prompted by the government’s management of the economy. As demonstrations grew, Iranian leaders shut off the internet and arrested dissidents, leading to wider unrest. The government responded by killing thousands, effectively ending the uprising.
The plot involving Mr. Rivera was not the first to target Ms. Alinejad, prosecutors said.
Last year two men described by prosecutors as Russian mafia leaders were convicted of murder for hire and other charges as part of a plan to kill Ms. Alinejad at the behest of a network in Iran that included Ruhollah Bazghandi, a brigadier general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. They were each sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Mr. Rivera was hired, prosecutors said, by Farhad Shakeri, who has also been accused of being involved in a plot to kill Donald J. Trump. The two met, according to court papers, in state prison, where Mr. Rivera was serving a sentence of more than 18 years for murder, and Mr. Shakeri was serving time after a manslaughter conviction. By 2024, prosecutors said, Mr. Shakeri was living in Iran where he was “an asset” for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
After agreeing to kill Ms. Alinejad, prosecutors said, Mr. Rivera recruited the help of a friend, Jonathan Loadholt. In addition to buying a firearm, prosecutors said, the men obtained burner phones and left their day-to-day phones at home when looking for Ms. Alinejad. They also switched the license plates on Mr. Loadholt’s car.
The two began stalking Ms. Alinejad, prosecutors said, sometimes spending hours a day watching a home in Brooklyn where an assassin sent by the Russian mobsters had tracked her to a few years earlier. By the time Mr. Rivera and Mr. Loadholt started monitoring that home, however, Ms. Alinejad had moved.
At one point, the men went to Fairfield University, in Connecticut, where Ms. Alinejad was scheduled to give a talk. But she didn’t show up because the event was canceled.
After a few months, prosecutors said, the conspirators were frustrated. Mr. Shakeri was displeased that Mr. Rivera and Mr. Loadholt had not yet accomplished their assigned task, according to voice notes cited by prosecutors in court.
Mr. Rivera told Mr. Shakeri that Ms. Alinejad was “hard to catch, bro.” Mr. Rivera also complained that he had received only a modest upfront payment and had used some of it on what he described as expenses: “toll bridge fee, going back and forth. Putting gas in the car.”
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