One of the men accused of impersonating federal law enforcement to ingratiate himself with the U.S. Secret Service said he had “no intention of compromising any federal agent” and had provided them lavish gifts out of a “desire for friendship,” while the other man charged said he had gotten carried away in a ruse he did not fully understand, according to court documents filed in federal court Monday.
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The memos filed by the lawyers of Arian Taherzadeh, 40, and Haider Ali, 35, came before the men appeared in court Monday afternoon for a detention hearing on charges of impersonating federal law enforcement.
Prosecutors, who have said they could add a charge of conspiracy, argued that the pair created “a potential risk to national security” and ought to be jailed pending trial. Defense attorneys, on the other hand, contended that prosecutors “have jumped to the wildest conspiracy theories possible over the most scant of evidence." They argued it would be unfair to jail the men longer when, if convicted as charged, they could receive probation under federal guidelines recommending a sentence of zero to six months in jail.
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Both attorneys asked for their clients to be released pending trial to live with their parents in Virginia under electronic monitoring and high-intensity supervision, saying neither is a risk of flight, obstruction or committing a similar crime.
U.S. Magistrate Judge G. Michael Harvey said Monday he would issue a decision Tuesday afternoon and had not made up his mind.
The arguments from Taherzadeh and Ali shed new light on a bizarre case that surfaced Wednesday, when the FBI searched a luxury apartment building in the Navy Yard area and found a stash of police weapons, access codes to federal agents’ homes and equipment to create Personal Identification Verification cards that if programmed correctly can be used to access sensitive law enforcement computers. Prosecutors allege the men cozied up to Secret Services agents, including one assigned to first lady Jill Biden’s security detail.
Men posing as DHS employees created potential national security risk, prosecutors say
The investigation into the men began March 14, when a U.S. Postal Service inspector went to the building where Taherzadeh and Ali live in response to an unrelated complaint of an assault, according to court documents. While in the building — known to house many people who work for the FBI, Secret Service, Department of Defense and Navy — residents told the inspector that Ali and Taherzadeh had identified themselves as Department of Homeland Security investigations special agents and may have witnessed the assault, according allegations investigators filed in court documents.
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Federal authorities have since accused Taherzadeh and Ali of obtaining material such as police weapons and surveillance equipment to pose as Department of Homeland Security employees, and then giving members of the Secret Service rent-free apartments, iPhones, a drone and more. The FBI arrested the pair Wednesday and placed four U.S. Secret Services members on leave.
Authorities have not identified a motive or what the men wanted in return for the favors.
On Monday, Taherzadeh’s defense attorney, Michelle Peterson, said the defendant voluntarily met with FBI agents without an attorney for more than five hours after his arrest, gave them his passport and two phones and consent to search his phones. She also said Taherzadeh voluntarily turned over a rifle he stored in Virginia to the government.
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“All this suggests the notion he poses any risk of obstruction of justice is laughable," Peterson said. “He has assisted them in this investigation throughout.”
Peterson argued in court filings that Taherzadeh was motivated by a desire for friendship and that he only provided gifts to agents “with whom he had a genuine friendship” and never asked for anything in return. Taherzadeh was previously licensed in D.C. as an unarmed special police officer tasked with protecting property of a person or corporation, according to D.C. police and prosecutors. His defense said he was also licensed as a private detective. He acknowledged to law enforcement, his attorney said in court documents, that he had made “an embarrassing misrepresentation that got out of control.”
Ali’s defense, on the other hand, shifted the blame to Taherzadeh, arguing in court documents that Ali “may well have naively but genuinely believed” that Taherzadeh was a special agent with Homeland Security Investigations. The defense explained Ali’s alleged mistake by pointing to the government’s own allegations that four U.S. Secret Service agents had made similar misjudgments by believing the other defendant.
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“If all of those experienced federal agents, with their years or even decades of experience, did not see through Taherzadeh’s claims, why is it fair to expect more from Mr. Ali, a high school graduate with no college degree and none of their formalized training?” wrote attorney Gregory Smith in court documents.
Multiple family members submitted letters on behalf of Ali, describing him as a hard-working man devoted to his family.
Prosecutors have also argued that Ali poses a flight risk, citing his past travel and unsubstantiated claim to one witness that he had ties to the Pakistani intelligence service. In a statement Friday, Pakistan Embassy spokeswoman Maliha Shahid denied Ali’s claim of ties to the country’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency. “The claim of Mr. Haider Ali is totally fallacious,” she said. “The Embassy categorically rejects this false claim.”
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Ali, a naturalized U.S. citizen, apparently obtained a Pakistan national identity card in 2019 available to its citizens who live abroad, Rothstein said. He has traveled at least twice to his native Pakistan before 2017, once to Egypt in 2013, once to Iraq, and traveled to Iran sometime between July 2019 and January 2020.
“We have not even credited his statement [of ties to ISI],” Rothstein said Friday. “But we do have to take his statement seriously, if he claimed to an individual he has a connection to a foreign intelligence service.”
Smith argued in the court documents that Ali’s trips to Iran and Iraq are not “particularly remarkable, since Mr. Ali’s faith’s major religious shrines are located there, and these visits also all took place more than two years ago, with no visits or established contacts since.”
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Ali’s defense denied risk of flight, saying he has lived in the U.S. for more than 20 years and that his wife, four young children and extended family now reside in the area.
“The sad reality here is, how does my client ever get past this,” Smith said of Ali in court Monday. “Clearly for the rest of his life in an Internet that never goes away he is forever scarred anytime he looks for a job or an apartment.”
Peter Hermann contributed to this report.