Three individuals have been charged in a purported Iran-backed plot to assassinate President-elect Donald Trump, an Iranian-American activist, and two Jewish Americans residing in New York, according to a criminal complaint unsealed in New York on Friday.
The U.S. Department of Justice identified the suspects as Farhad Shakeri, Carlisle Rivera, and Jonathan Loadholt, who face murder-for-hire charges. While Rivera and Loadholt have been arrested, Shakeri, described by the FBI as an “asset” of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), is believed to be in Tehran.
According to the complaint, the IRGC tasked Shakeri with the surveillance and planned killing of Trump as retaliation for the U.S. drone strike that killed Qassem Soleimani, head of the Quds Force, in Baghdad in January 2020.
“There are few actors in the world that pose as grave a threat to the national security of the United States as does Iran. 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 J. Trump,” Attorney General Merrick Garland stated while announcing the charges.
Shakeri, who had previously emigrated to the United States, was deported in 2008 after serving prison time for robbery. It was during his imprisonment that he met Rivera and Loadholt, whom he later recruited to target an Iranian-American activist residing in Brooklyn, according to court documents.
The IRGC’s alleged directives extended beyond Trump, involving plans to carry out assassinations against U.S. and Israeli citizens. Shakeri reportedly told law enforcement that he was assigned a month before the election to develop a plan for killing Trump but claimed he did not intend to execute the plan within the timeframe specified by the IRGC.
Prosecutors allege Shakeri also surveilled two Jewish-American residents of New York City and was offered $500,000 by an IRGC official for their murder. The complaint further notes that he was tasked with targeting Israeli tourists in Sri Lanka.
“Actors directed by the Government of Iran continue to target our citizens, including President-elect Trump, on U.S. soil and abroad. This has to stop,” stated U.S. Attorney Damian Williams. “Today’s charges are another message to those who continue in their efforts — we will remain unrelenting in our pursuit of bad actors, no matter where they reside, and will stop at nothing to bring to justice those who harm our safety and security.”
