Overview
- On May 27, 2026, Jonathan Loadholt was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit stalking and conspiracy to commit money laundering in a plot to target Masih Alinejad.
- Prosecutors say the plot was directed by the Government of Iran and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and that an intermediary, Farhad Shakeri, recruited and paid U.S.-based operatives to surveil and prepare a killing.
- Loadholt and co-defendant Carlisle Rivera used money from Shakeri to buy a firearm and burner phones, follow Alinejad to a February 2024 speaking event, and repeatedly surveil a Brooklyn address believed to be hers.
- Rivera earlier pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and was sentenced to 15 years in January 2026, while Shakeri remains at large in Iran.
- The case was led by the FBI New York Joint Terrorism Task Force and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and underscores U.S. efforts to disrupt foreign-directed threats to dissidents on American soil.