3 indicted in connection with Iran-linked plot to assassinate Donald Trump, sources tell ABC News

Three people have been charged in an alleged Iran-linked plot to kill newly elected President Donald Trump, an Iranian-American activist and two Jewish Americans living in New York, according to a criminal complaint unsealed in New York on Friday.

Farhad Shakeri, Carlisle Rivera and Jonathan Loadholt are charged with murder-for-hire, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Rivera and Loadholt have been arrested, while Shakeri, described by the FBI as an “asset” of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, is believed to be in Tehran.

The IRGC ordered Shakeri to surveil and kill Trump to avenge the death of Qassem Soleimani, the leader of Iran’s elite Quds Force, in a US drone strike in Baghdad in January 2020, the complaint said.

“Few actors in the world pose as serious a threat to the national security of the United States as Iran. The Justice Department has charged an asset of the Iranian regime who was tasked by the regime to lead a network of criminal allies. to further Iran’s assassination plots against its targets, including President-elect Donald J. Trump,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement announcing the charges.

Shakeri immigrated to the United States but was deported in 2008 after serving a prison sentence for theft, the Justice Department said. While in prison, he met Rivera and Loadholt and hired them to target an Iranian-American activist living in Brooklyn, the complaint said.

The IRGC also ordered Shakeri to carry out other assassinations of American and Israeli citizens in the United States, including Trump, the complaint alleges.

Shakeri informed law enforcement officials that he had been ordered to devise a plan to kill Trump a month before the election, prosecutors said. During the interview, Shakeri reportedly claimed that he had no intention of proposing a plan to assassinate Trump within the time frame set by the IRGC.

He also stated that he was tasked with surveilling two Jewish American citizens living in New York City and was offered $500,000 by an IRGC official for the murder of either victim, the complaint said. He was also tasked with targeting Israeli tourists in Sri Lanka, the complaint said.

“Actors led by the government of Iran continue to attack our citizens, including President-elect Trump, on U.S. soil and abroad. This must stop,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement. “Today’s indictment is another message to those who continue their efforts: we will remain relentless in our pursuit of bad actors, regardless of where they reside, and we will do everything we can to bring those who harm our security to justice. to bring justice.”

This is a development story. Check back later for updates.