A Staten Island man who admitted helping track a prominent Iranian American dissident is headed to federal prison for a decade.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Lewis J. Liman sentenced 37-year-old Jonathan Loadholt to 10 years behind bars in Manhattan federal court for his role in a scheme that prosecutors say targeted writer and activist Masih Alinejad. Loadholt had pleaded guilty earlier this year.
Guilty plea and sentence
Loadholt pleaded guilty to conspiracies to commit stalking and to launder money in connection with the 2024 plot. Prosecutors say he was recruited by associates tied to an overseas asset and assigned to surveil Alinejad and ultimately kill her before the FBI stepped in, according to The Associated Press.
How prosecutors say the plot unfolded
According to prosecutors, the operation centered on an Iran-based operative who allegedly sent funds to local associates. Those associates then bought firearms and burner phones and tailed Alinejad at public events and near her Brooklyn home.
One of those associates, Carlisle Rivera, was accused of recruiting Loadholt into the plot. Rivera pleaded guilty and received a 15-year sentence earlier this year, according to a release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.
Linked cases and a bounty allegation
Prosecutors say this case is part of a broader pattern of plots aimed at silencing Alinejad. Two alleged foreign coordinators were convicted and handed 25-year sentences last fall in a separate 2022 scheme, and prosecutors told jurors in that trial that Iran had put a $500,000 bounty on Alinejad’s head, as reported in Russian mob henchmen convicted.
Legal context
Loadholt’s plea covered conspiracy to commit stalking and conspiracy to commit money laundering, charges that federal prosecutors have used to capture both the cross-border and financial elements of the plot. Public filings from the Justice Department describe related murder-for-hire, money-laundering and firearms counts against the suspected ringleaders and detail the significantly harsher penalties some co-defendants are facing, per the Justice Department.
Alinejad, an author and contributor to Voice of America and CBS News, left Iran in 2009 and became a U.S. citizen in 2019. She has described the attempts on her life as part of Tehran’s effort to silence critics abroad. Prosecutors and federal officials say the sentences in these related cases are intended to deter foreign-directed violence on U.S. soil and to make clear that anyone who signs on to such plots will be prosecuted, according to The Associated Press.
