Arian Taherzadeh, 40, and Haider Ali, 35, were arrested last week. The FBI raided a luxury apartment building in southeastern Washington, D.C., where men lived and offered free apartments and other gifts to U.S. intelligence agents and prosecutors, prosecutors said. Judge Michael Harvey ruled Tuesday that Taherzadeh and Ali could be released on bail and must remain with relatives in the area until the trial and wear GPS ankle tracking devices. The case does not meet any of the bail denial standards, Harvey said. The accused crime, pretending to be the police, is not a violent crime. The government said Ali was in danger of fleeing, but the judge said there was no evidence that a foreign force was trying to target Secret Service agents. The prosecutor is appealing against the judge’s decision. News4’s Paul Wagner reports. Harvey suspended until 9 a.m. Wednesday after the prosecutor filed an appeal. Prosecutors said the men had violated four Secret Service agents and could pose a threat to national security. However, defense attorneys said the government was overreacting and there was no evidence that the men were involved in a malicious plot. Taherzadeh and Ali appeared before Judge Harvey in a video call on Tuesday. When asked if Ali was a Pakistani citizen, Ali’s lawyer told Harvey that he was not. Harvey also asked if other law enforcement officers had been violated, which the prosecutor said Taherzadeh had contacted a DHS analyst and a Navy intelligence officer. The officer was so concerned about the contact that he reported it to NCIS, the prosecutor said. The prosecutor also told the judge that the FBI was investigating whether the gifts the two men were accused of giving to agents – including a drone, a flat-screen TV and free rental in a luxury apartment – were part of a bribe. At present, there is no evidence of this, the prosecutor said. Defense attorneys for both men argued that they posed no danger to the public and were not currently charged with violent crimes. On Monday, Taherzadeh’s lawyer described what happened as a “shameful falsification that went out of control” and said he acted out of a “desire for friendship, not to affect anyone”. Taherzadegh never asked for anything from the officers he was friends with, the lawyer said. Ali’s lawyer, meanwhile, said Ali had never been convicted in previous arrests, offered to surrender and that prosecutors were trying to confuse the two men. The two men were briefed on the investigation when a Secret Service internal affairs investigator emailed Taherzadeh seeking information following the administrative clearance of secret service officers last week, the prosecutor said. The FBI investigated five homes in the building Wednesday and three vehicles. They found armor, gas masks, zippers, handcuffs, door-breaking equipment, drones, radios and police training manuals, prosecutors said. The two men also had surveillance equipment and a high-powered telescope, prosecutors said. The FBI also found several firearms – including firearms and ammunition – and dismantled rifle pieces and sniper rifles, prosecutors said. Prosecutors said FBI agents also found a machine to create and program personal identity cards that, if properly programmed, could be used to access sensitive law enforcement computers. Prosecutors allege that Taherzadeh and Ali falsely claimed that they were working for the Department of Homeland Security and that they were working on a task force investigating gangs and violence linked to the January 6 uprising in the US Capitol. The plot was uncovered when the U.S. Postal Service began investigating an attack with a mail carrier on the apartment building and the men identified themselves as members of a fake Homeland Security unit called the U.S. Police Special Investigation Unit, prosecutors said. Investigators believe Ali had made many trips to the Middle East and had three visas indicating he had gone to Pakistan and two visas to Iran, Rothstein said. U.S. travel records also showed he had traveled to Istanbul, Turkey and Doha in Qatar, he said.
