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(Nov. 8, 2024 / JNS) — The U.S. Justice Department on Friday charged three men it said were involved in an Iranian plot to assassinate President-elect Donald Trump and kill Jews, Israelis and an Iranian-American lawyer rights.

Prosecutors charged Farhad Shakeri, 51, of Iran; Carlisle Rivera, 49, of Brooklyn, NY; and Jonathan Loadholt, 36, of Staten Island, NY, with two counts of murder-for-hire and one count of money laundering each, with a maximum of 40 years in prison each.

Shakeri is still charged with terrorism and the sanctions violation charges carry an additional 60 years in prison.

“The charges announced today reveal Iran’s continued attempts to target American citizens, including President-elect Donald Trump, other government leaders and dissidents critical of the regime in Tehran,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray.

“The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — a designated foreign terrorist organization — has conspired with criminals and assassins to target and take down Americans on U.S. soil, and it simply will not be tolerated,” Wray added.

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Police arrested Loadholt and Rivera on Thursday, and the two appeared in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York the same day. Shakeri is at large and believed to be in Iran, according to the Justice Department.

According to the criminal complaint, Shakeri, on behalf of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, attempted to orchestrate targeted assassinations of Americans and the mass killing of Israelis.

Masih Alinejad, an Iranian-American Iranian rights lawyer whom the regime previously tried to kill in a foiled 2022 attack in Brooklyn, identified himself on Friday as one of the targets of the murder-for-hire conspiracy.

“I just learned from the FBI that two men were arrested yesterday in a new plot to kill me at Fairfield University where I was scheduled to give a talk,” she wrote. “I came to America to exercise my first amendment freedom of speech – I don’t want to die.”

Shakeri told FBI agents in a series of phone conversations between September and November that the IRGC instructed him in mid-September to try to kill Trump and that he was willing to spend a “huge” amount of money to do so. this thing.

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The terrorist organization also instructed him to kill two “Jewish businessmen living in New York,” identified in the complaint as “Victim-2” and “Victim-3.”

“Shakeri explained that the IRGC provided him with images of Victim-2 and Victim-3 which, according to Shakeri, appeared to be from social media and which indicated Victim-2 and Victim-3’s support for Israel,” it said complaint.

The IRGC offered $500,000 each to kill the two Jews.

The terrorist group also claimed he planned a mass shooting of Israeli tourists in Sri Lanka’s Arugam Bay, which was foiled by US and Sri Lankan authorities, who arrested three men in October after Israel and the United States they warned of an imminent attack.

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