Gunmen were ‘ready’ to kill 2 who fled to the US, feds say. Iranian man charged
An Iranian man is accused of recruiting gunmen to kill two Maryland residents who fled to the U.S. after one had “defected from Iran,” the Justice Department announced Jan. 29.
Naji Sharifi Zindashti, 49, and Canadian nationals Damion Patrick John Ryan, 43, and Adam Richard Pearson, 29, are charged in connection with the “assassination plot,” federal prosecutors said in a news release.
Information regarding their legal representation wasn’t available Jan. 29.
Zindashti, who lives in Iran, is accused of leading an assassination and kidnapping network for the Iranian regime that targets “dissidents and opposition activists” — specifically perceived critics of Iran’s government, according to the Treasury Department.
Zindashti contacted Ryan, who belongs to the outlaw Hells Angels Motorcycle Club, about the “job” to kill the two Maryland residents, and Ryan said he had someone in mind that could help — Pearson, prosecutors said. Pearson was a fellow Hells Angels member, according to officials.
In messages exchanged between Ryan and Pearson, Ryan wrote he needed the job “to be over kill lol,” according to an unsealed indictment.
In response, Pearson, who is accused of illegally living in Minnesota, said he’d encourage gunmen recruited in the scheme to “shoot (the victim) in the head a lot (to) make example,” the indictment said.
Pearson also said “he would tell (the gunmen) ‘we gotta erase his head from his torso,’” according to the indictment.
On Jan. 30, 2021, Zindashti and Ryan decided on a $350,000 payment for the murders to be carried out — and an extra payment of $20,000 to cover travel costs, the Justice Department said.
“We have a 4 man team ready,” Ryan wrote in one message to a co-conspirator, according to prosecutors, who didn’t identify the co-conspirator in the indictment.
Afterward, upon Ryan’s request, the co-conspirator sent him photos of the Maryland residents, a man and a woman, and images of two maps that showed their addresses, the indictment said.
Then, on March 8, 2021, this co-conspirator “facilitated a $20,000 payment to Ryan,” according to the Justice Department.
Zindashti, Ryan and Pearson are charged with one count of conspiracy to use interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire, prosecutors said.
Officials say the three men discussed the plot using an encrypted messaging service called SkyECC.
Pearson is additionally charged with one count of possession of a firearm by a fugitive from justice and one count of possession of a firearm by an alien unlawfully in the U.S., according to prosecutors.
While Zindashti is in Iran, Ryan and Pearson are “incarcerated in Canada for unrelated offenses,” according to prosecutors.
“To those in Iran who plot murders on U.S. soil and the criminal actors who work with them, let today’s charges send a clear message: the Department of Justice will pursue you as long as it takes — and wherever you are — and deliver justice,” Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen, of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, said in a statement.
The FBI continues to investigate the case with help from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, according to prosecutors.
The gunmen recruited in the plot weren’t named by the Justice Department, but one of them is a Minnesota resident, U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger, of the District of Minnesota, said in a statement.
The men are sanctioned under an Executive Order
The charges against Zindashti, Ryan and Pearson come as the Treasury Department and the United Kingdom take action against Zindashti’s assassination network.
Zindashti — an accused narcotics trafficker who officials said lives a luxurious lifestyle — runs the network for Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security, the Treasury Department said in a news release.
His “network has carried out numerous acts of transnational repression including assassinations and kidnappings across multiple jurisdictions in an attempt to silence the Iranian regime’s perceived critics,” officials said.
Zindashti, Ryan and Pearson are being sanctioned under Executive Order 13553, an order issued by the Obama administration, which “authorizes sanctions on certain persons with respect to serious human rights abuses by the Government of Iran,” according to the Treasury Department.
The sanctions prevent them from any dealings, including financial transactions, with U.S. citizens or dealings that take place within the U.S., the department said.
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