Iranian man charged with alleged conspiracy to kill Trump

The US government has filed charges against an Iranian man for allegedly conspiring to assassinate Donald Trump before his election as the next president.

The Justice Department on Friday unsealed an indictment against 51-year-old Farhad Shakeri, alleging he was hired to “lay out 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 Manhattan court, prosecutors allege that an Iranian Revolutionary Guard official ordered Mr. Shakeri in September to devise a plan to monitor and kill Trump.

“The Department of Justice has charged an Iranian regime operative who was hired by the regime to lead a network of criminal associates to further Iran’s assassination attempts against its targets, including President-elect Donald Trump,” said U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland in a statement statement.

The Justice Department has also charged two other people who were allegedly recruited to kill an American journalist who was an outspoken critic of Iran.

The other individuals were identified by the Justice Department as Carlisle Rivera, also known as “Pop,” 49, of Brooklyn, and Jonathon Loadholt, 36, of Staten Island.

The two appeared in court in the Southern District of New York on Thursday and are being held pending trial.

Trump has faced two different alleged assassination attempts this year. In July, a gunman grazed the former president's ear after shooting him during a rally in Pennsylvania.

Then, in September, a man was arrested for pointing a gun at Trump as he golfed at his golf course in West Palm Beach.

Mr. Shakeri was asked to devise a plan to kill Trump within seven days, the indictment says.

According to prosecutors, Mr. Shakeri told law enforcement that he had no intention of proposing a plan to kill Trump within that seven-day period, so Iranian Revolutionary Guard officials put the plan on hold.

Mr. Shakeri said the Iranian government told him it would be easier to assassinate Trump after the election because they believed he would lose, prosecutors said.

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 a robbery conviction.

Prosecutors say the 51-year-old used “a network of criminal associates” from prison, including Mr. Rivera and Mr. Loadholt, to monitor Iranian government targets.

Mr. Shakeri promised Mr. Rivera and Mr. Loadholt $100,000 to kill the American journalist, who had reported on the Iranian regime's human rights abuses and corruption, prosecutors alleged. The journalist, who has not been named, has already been targeted by the public prosecutor's office in the past.

In a social media post Friday, Brooklyn-based journalist Masih Alinejad said the FBI had arrested two men for trying to kill her. She said the suspected killers showed up outside her Brooklyn home.

“I came to America to exercise my First Amendment right to free speech — I don’t want to die,” Ms. Alinejad wrote. “I want to fight against tyranny, and I deserve to be safe.”

In addition to the American journalist and Trump, the indictment accuses the Iranian government of attempting to kill two Jewish American businessmen living in New York City who supported Israel on social media.

Mr. Shakeri also told prosecutors that his Iranian contacts asked him to plan a mass shooting against Israeli tourists in Sri Lanka in October 2024, a year after the Hamas attacks on Israel.

Mr. Shakeri, Mr. Rivera and Mr. Loadholt were all charged with murder-for-hire, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. They are also charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering – which could result in a prison sentence of 20 years – and conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire.