Accused Spies Granted Bail as Secret Service Investigates

April 13, 2022 by Tom Ramstack
Accused Spies Granted Bail as Secret Service Investigates
The affidavit to support the arrest of Arian Taherzadeh and Haider Ali is photographed Wednesday, April 6, 2022. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick)

WASHINGTON — A federal judge in Washington, D.C., released two accused spies on bail Wednesday after prosecutors failed to show they were flight risks or a threat to national security.

The two men, Haider Ali and Arian Taherzadeh, had been pretending for the previous two years to be Homeland Security Department agents. FBI agents who arrested them said they carried professional-quality, forged identification cards.

“They had firearms, they had ammunition, they had body armor, they had tactical gear, they had surveillance equipment,” a legal memo from the Justice Department prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said Ali, 35, and Taherzadeh, 40, have ties to Inter-Services Intelligence, the Pakistani intelligence service, which they did not reveal to other government employees who lived in the same apartment building as them.

“They pretended to recruit other individuals to law enforcement and their fake operation … and leveraged their phony law enforcement status to ingratiate themselves to other law enforcement agents in sensitive positions,” prosecutors said in a legal memo.

Prosecutors say the two men appear to have been giving valuable gifts to Secret Service agents to help in their efforts to infiltrate the federal government. The gifts included a rent-free penthouse apartment in Southeast D.C., they said.

Ali and Taherzadeh argued during the bail hearing that the gifts were tokens of friendship rather than being part of an effort to spy on the United States.

They described their pretense of being federal agents as a “ruse” that got out of control.

Their defense attorneys argued the Justice Department “jumped to the wildest conspiracy theories possible over the most scant of evidence.”

U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael Harvey largely agreed with the defense attorneys.

“There is no evidence of foreign ties in this case,” Harvey said in his ruling that freed Ali and Taherzadeh from jail. He ordered that they stay with relatives in the Washington area and wear GPS ankle monitors while they await trial.

The evidence showed “the defendants’ impersonation of federal officers was, as Mr. Ali said in his [FBI] interview, that they ‘just wanted to feel on the same level’ as the real federal agents,” Harvey said.

The case led to an investigation of four Secret Service agents that continues. One of the agents works at the White House. Another one was assigned to help protect First Lady Jill Biden.

Tom can be reached at [email protected]

A+
a-
  • court
  • espionage
  • FBI
  • Justice Department
  • spies
  • In The News

    Health

    Voting

    Law

    December 8, 2023
    by Dan McCue
    Appeals Court Largely Upholds Trump DC Gag Order

    WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court panel on Friday largely upheld a gag order imposed on former President Donald Trump... Read More

    WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court panel on Friday largely upheld a gag order imposed on former President Donald Trump in the criminal case accusing him of trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election, but loosened it just enough to allow criticism of the... Read More

    December 8, 2023
    by Tom Ramstack
    Hunter Biden Indicted on Felony Charges Alleging Years of Tax Evasion

    LOS ANGELES — A Los Angeles grand jury indicted Hunter Biden on tax charges Thursday. The nine-count indictment alleges Biden... Read More

    LOS ANGELES — A Los Angeles grand jury indicted Hunter Biden on tax charges Thursday. The nine-count indictment alleges Biden failed to pay $1.4 million in taxes over four years. The Los Angeles indictment follows similar tax evasion charges this year in Delaware. Biden also is... Read More

    New York Can Enforce Laws Banning Guns From 'Sensitive Locations' for Now, US Appeals Court Rules

    NEW YORK (AP) — New York can continue to enforce laws banning firearms in certain “sensitive” locations and require that... Read More

    NEW YORK (AP) — New York can continue to enforce laws banning firearms in certain “sensitive” locations and require that handgun owners be of “good moral character,” a federal appeals court ruled Friday in its first broad review of a host of new gun rules passed... Read More

    December 4, 2023
    by Dan McCue
    Former Ohio Utilities Chairman Indicted in Bribery Scandal

    CINCINNATI — A federal grand jury has charged the former chairman of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio with taking... Read More

    CINCINNATI — A federal grand jury has charged the former chairman of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio with taking $4.3 million in bribes from one of the nation's largest investor-owned utility companies. Sam Randazzo surrendered at the federal court in Cincinnati on Monday after being... Read More

    AP Exclusive: America's Black Attorneys General Talk Race, Politics and Justice System

    BOSTON (AP) — The American legal system is facing a crisis of trust in communities around the country, with people... Read More

    BOSTON (AP) — The American legal system is facing a crisis of trust in communities around the country, with people of all races and across the political spectrum. For many, recent protests against police brutality called attention to longstanding discrepancies in the administration of justice. For others, criticism... Read More

    November 30, 2023
    by Dan McCue
    New York Appellate Court Reinstates Trump Gag Orders

    NEW YORK — A New York appeals court panel on Thursday reinstated a pair of gag orders issued in Donald... Read More

    NEW YORK — A New York appeals court panel on Thursday reinstated a pair of gag orders issued in Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial that barred the former president from speaking publicly about the judge’s court staff. The two-page decision by the New York State Supreme... Read More

    News From The Well
    scroll top