- Four Secret Service members remain on administrative leave.
- Accused imposters’ purpose, funding remain unclear.
- Magistrate to rule on pre-trial release Tuesday.
WASHINGTON – Lawyers representing two men accused of masquerading as federal agents in a scheme that compromised four Secret Service members claimed Monday that prosecutors had grossly exaggerated the case against their clients and that they posed no threat to national security.
Arguing for their clients’ release, attorneys for Arian Taherzadeh, 40, and Haider Ali, 35, told a federal magistrate that the government had spun “the wildest conspiracy theories imaginable” while offering no evidence the suspects sought to infiltrate the Secret Service or that Ali had any association with Pakistan’s intelligence service.
More:Secret Service investigation leads to agents put on leave over scheme providing rent-free apartments
Prosecutors have asserted that Ali had told at least one witness that he had connections with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency.
“I’ve been doing this a long time,” said Ali’s attorney, Gregory Smith. “There have been times in my career when I’ve seen the government get out over their skis; this is the case here.”
“The real imposter here is the impersonation of this case as a national security threat,” he said, during a Monday detention hearing where both suspects sought their releases pending trial.
US Magistrate G. Michael Harvey said he would rule on the Tuesday requests, though he, too, appeared to be openly skeptical of the government’s claim that either suspect presented a continuing danger.
Taherzadeh’s attorney, Michelle Peterson, said it was “laughable” that her client posed any risk given his decision to submit to a five-hour interview with FBI agents immediately after his arrest earlier this week.
Peterson said her client answered all questions posed by investigators in the unusual case in which Taherzadeh and Ali allegedly showered Secret Service members with gifts, including two rent-free apartments valued at more than $40,000.
Taherzadeh, according to prosecutors, also offered to purchase a $2,000 assault rifle for a Secret Service agent assigned to the protective detail of first lady Jill Biden.
What benefit the two suspects sought from the relationships still remains unclear, along with the source of their funding.
At Monday’s hearing, Taherzadeh’s father, Masoud Taherzadeh, offered an emotional plea for release, indicating that he would ensure that his son posed no risk.
“In a blink of an eye, I will quit my job,” the 66-year-old employee of a local granite and marble company said, promising to keep watch on his son.
Testimonials were also submitted by Ali’s family members.
“I do not consider my husband to be dangerous in any way or likely to cause harm to me or anyone else,” Leyly Castro wrote in a letter to the Havey. “Haider Ali is a very loving husband and an extremely kind father. He has always been there for our family. The children adore him and love him immensely.”
But Assistant US Attorney Joshua Rothstein maintained that detention was necessary, citing the suspects’ cache of weapons, ammunition and law enforcement equipment recovered their apartments.
Rothstein cast their conduct as “an elaborate scheme filled with deceit.”
Describing the scope of the government’s ongoing investigation, the prosecutor has said that a moving truck was necessary to carry evidence from five downtown DC apartments that the suspects allegedly controlled.
The suspects were “not merely playing dress-up,” Rothstein told Harvey during the first day of the detention hearing last week. “They had firearms, they had ammunition, they had body armor, they had tactical gear, they had surveillance equipment and they were engaged in conduct that represented a serious threat to the community, compromised the operations of a federal law enforcement agency and created a potential risk to national security.”
In Ali’s case, Rothstein said investigators were still sifting through an extensive travel background in which seized passports showed two trips each to Iran and Pakistan and single visits to Egypt and Iraq within months of when the suspects allegedly began their association with Secret Service personnel.
Ali’s brother, Shergeel Khan, told the magistrate in a letter that Ali’s travels were part of “a spiritual evolution.”
“It is my understanding that these travels several years ago to Iran, Iraq and Egypt involved visits to various religious shrines as confirmed by the various gifts to the family after coming back to US,” Khan wrote. “Despite his change in ideology, however, he has shown no signs of being radicalized and has continued to remain close to the family…To the best of my knowledge, Ali has no links whatsoever to any Pakistani intelligence agency. I do not believe Ali to be a danger to anyone.”
Pakistani officials also have said that Ali had no association to the country’s intelligence agency.
“The claim of Mr. Haider Ali is totally fallacious,” Pakistan’s embassy said in a statement. “The Embassy categorically rejects this false claim.”
Four Secret Service members, two agents and two Uniformed Division officers, remain on administrative leave pending an internal investigation.
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George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism