A Washington DC man pleaded guilty to posing as a Department of Homeland Security agent and agreed to cooperate with the Justice Department.
According to prosecutors, Arian Taherzadeh ingratiated himself with Secret Service agents through gifts and free apartments, putting four federal members on administrative leave for engaging in several years of deception, according to court documents.
The case solidified when new charges and information were revealed at the plea hearing.
Taherzadeh, along with his co-defendant Haider Ali, were indicted early of 2022 of posing as federal agents and possessing illegal high-capacity ammunition magazines. The two defendants were released from house arrest in April.
Ali, for his part, pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Taherzadeh was charged with conspiring to impersonate a federal law enforcement officer as well as possessing a large-capacity legal ammunition magazine and recording people, without his permission, participating in sexual activities.
Pleaded guilty to all three counts, and as part of his testimony, he agreed to collaborate with the Department of Justice in its investigations. He faces between 40 and 46 months of deprivation of liberty, according to the sentencing guidelines.
Prosecutors argued that Taherzadeh, Ali and another unidentified person deceived the Secret Service agents by ingratiating themselves with them, offering them gifts and free apartments.
The agents never paid for the luxury apartments they rented in DC and were evicted from different buildings, accumulating more than 800,000 dollars of debts in rents, fees and parking, according to prosecutors. Using fictitious people as his “supervisors,” Taherzadeh told buildings that the government would pay rent and blamed government bureaucracy and their fictitious bosses for unpaid bills, court reports say.
The plea agreement shows that Taherzadeh also worked to recruit others for the phony Homeland Security Investigations force that he said was under DHS.
On the other hand, Taherzadeh said that he had installed a surveillance camera in his room and recorded related women in sexual activities without his permission, videos in which he showed himself to other people. The men also used their fake IDs to gain access to security footage of the apartment they lived in, according to prosecutors.
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