Journalist Masih Alinejad was second target of Iranian assassination plot to kill Donald Trump

Activist and journalist Masih Alinejad was a secondary target in Iran’s plot to assassinate Donald Trump, court documents reveal.

The Justice Department on Friday unsealed criminal charges against three people involved in the thwarted plot to kill Trump before the election.

Farjad Shakeri, 51, who is still at-large in Iran, was to be the lead man for both assassinations until he flipped to the FBI and the operation was paused.

Carlisle Rivera, 49, and Jonathon Loadholt, 36, were arrested by the FBI in New York City and faced court on Thursday, accused of conspiracy to murder.

Alinejad is a human rights activist living in Brooklyn who has long criticized Iran’s extreme repression of women.   

‘I am shocked. I just learned from the FBI that two men were arrested yesterday in a new plot to kill me,’ she wrote on social media on Friday.

Alinejad was the target of at least two other recent assassination plots, and is the target of a fatwa issued by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Iranian intelligence planned to kidnap her in 2021 and take her back to Iran for a grim fate, and in July 2022 a man was arrested after staking out her home for two weeks with a loaded AK-47.

‘I also learned that the person assigned to assassinate was also assigned to kill me on US soil. The alleged killers also went in front of my house in Brooklyn,’ Alinejad continued.

‘I call on the US Government and the future President of the United States to be tough on terror. The Islamic Republic understands only one language: the language of pressure. 

I came to America to practice my First Amendment right to freedom of speech – I don’t want to die. I want to fight against tyranny, and I deserve to be safe. 

‘Thank you to law enforcement for protecting me, but I urge the US Government to protect the national security of America.’

FBI charging documents described her an an Iranian American journalist, author, and political activist, and an outspoken critic of the Iranian regime’s human rights abuses and corruption.

Alinejad ‘has long been a high-priority target of the Iranian regime’, it stated.

The criminal complaint alleged Shakeri was tasked with organizing the hits by Iranian intelligence, and offered Rivera and Loadholt $100,000 to get them done.

Shakeri was tasked with other assassinations of Americans and Israelis around the world, which were not specified in the documents.

The FBI explained the plot began last December when Shakeri paid another conspirator, ‘Feva’, $3,000 to locate Alinejad, after making contact on December 19.

Feva was then paid $3,298.15 by an account in the United Arab Emirates on December 29.

The conspirator, who was not charged over the plot, was jailed for eight to 24 years in 1991 for first-degree manslaughter and released on parole in 2006.

The FBI said he and Shakeri were jailed together and also trafficked drugs.

Rivera and Loadholt allegedly became involved in February when Shakeri paid them $1,000 to surveil Alinejad at a speaking engagement at Fairfield University in Fairfield, Connecticut, on February 15.

Alinejad said on Friday that the assassins planned to kill her ‘at Fairfield University, where I was scheduled to give a talk’.

She said in a video accompanying her post that the FBI advised her not to attend the event and her appearance was canceled at the last minute. 

‘Now I found out why, and it’s shocking,’ she said from a hotel room in Berlin. 

‘The killers were planning to go to Fairfield University, waiting for me, and I don’t know what was in their mind – but I remember what happened to Salman Rushdie.’

There was no mention in the court documents of the university being where the hit was to take place, or that planning had even picked a date and time.

It was unclear if Alinejad misunderstood what the FBI told her about the surveillance that was planned to be done on her at the event in February.

‘I know the nature of the Islamic Republic… to get rid of their opponents, to kill anyone who dares to challenge them [or] criticize Islamic ideology,’ she continued.

‘So, I have been given a second life, no, third life. The kidnapping plot was foiled by the FBI’ and the man arrested in front of her house.

Alinejad said she was pleased no less than 15 people hired by Iran to kill her in just the past three years had been arrested ‘and six of them are behind bars in America’.

‘That’s why I love my life, and I love America, and I love Iranian women who are facing the same killers, the same murderers, and never giving up,’ she said.

‘So whatever I do, hurts them really badly that they want to kill me – that makes me more determined… We will win this battle.’

Shakeri created a report on Alinejad’s background and activities in his cloud account on February 1 as he compiled his intelligence on her.

Communications between the pair allegedly showed them discussing when they would be paid for the job.

Other evidence cited in the complaint included a receipt for a petrol station near the university, and a black 2007 Honda Accord with South Carolina license plates registered to Loadholt being scanned at Fairfield University on February 15.

There was also two photos they allegedly took at the college, one with a small selfie of Rivera in the corner.

Shakeri’s next alleged job for them was to to keep watch on Alinejad at her home in Brooklyn in March, for which they were paid about $2,600 each.

Text messages allegedly showed Rivera and Loadholt coordinating their surveillance with plans to meet and where they were going.

License plate reader data and police camera footage again allegedly showed Loadholt’s car near Alinejad’s house.

They were also allegedly spotted on security video making bagel runs during their surveillance.

The pair allegedly complained to Shakeri that Alinejad was hard to pin down and that assassinating her was not going to be an easy task.

‘This bitch is hard to catch, bro. And because she hard to catch, there ain’t gonna be no simple pull up, unless there the luck of the draw. Unless there’s the luck of the draw,’ Rivera allegedly said in a voice note.

Shakeri advised them that their target spent most of the time in a study on the third floor and a recording studio on the second floor.

‘You just gotta have patience and don’t, kicking, kick in the door is not an option because that’ s a fail, that’s a fail maneuver,’ he warned in a voice note reply.

‘You gotta wait and have patience to catch her either going in the house or coming out, or following her out somewhere and taking care of it. Don’t think about going in. In is a suicide move.’

Rivera allegedly complained in response: ‘We was here at night time, like 5.30 this morning, there was no f**kin’ lights on…. I already know kickin’ in doors only gonna to bring more attention. We already know that, that part. 

‘That neighborhood is too quiet for that type of shit. Unless she’s on the first floor, and you kick that s**t in and then, then, you know, and let’s assume you kick it in on the first try.’

Rivera appeared to get increasingly frustrated with the assignment and how much the expenses were adding up.

‘What I’m sayin’ to you in a nutshell, bro. Is in order for this to get done? And I don’t give a fuck who is [U/I]. You say, ‘f**k you, n***a, I want somebody else.’ 

‘Ok, your secret safe with me ’cause I ain’t no snitch n**a, and I sure ain’t no bitch n***a. So I can handle that, right. 

‘By the same token, you not gonna find too many motherf**kers who willing to take the job with receiving next to nothin’ to start the job off with. 

‘You sent me thirty-one fifty, right? That pays for some tools and fuels, right? Tools and fuels that’s being, the slammer, mostly, the slammer. 

‘Um, toll bridge fee, going back and forth. Putting gas in the car. Rentin’ the car. Look, the car ain’t mine bromie, that s**t is bein’ rented. It’s funded by the thirty-one fifty.

‘S**t ain’ t, know what I mean, n***as ain’t just lettin’ you hold their car to do a drive by for nothin’, know what I mean, so…

‘But homie, how long you think that’s gonna last? How long can you expect two workin’ niggas, or one workin’ n***a, really me, but my man too, he a workin’ n***a too. 

‘He not like, he’s gonna sit out here all night, all day, rain, cold, sleet, on a promise. Let’s be for real, we out here on a promise, from a n***a I know.’

Rivera appeared to make a veiled threat, pointing out it was good for both Loadholt and Shakeri that they knew as little about each other as possible, and that they were only connected through him.

The FBI alleged he used this to ask for more cash to finish the operation, as he had already bought weapons for the hit, paid for travel costs, and rented the car to kill the target in a drive-by shooting.

He allegedly claimed Loadholt only went along with the plan because he vouched for Shakeri, and would have refused if anyone else asked him. 

The pair allegedly negotiated a $100,000 fee to ‘finish the job’ during April, and Shakeri had the cash laundered, with a delay that irked Rivera.

‘Finish the work, and pick up,’ Shakeri instructed his lackey, to which Rivera allegedly answered, ‘N**a I wish it was that easy but I ain’t no quitter’.

Shakeri later told them to ‘take care of it already’.

‘I wish you can take care of it already. I have everything covered. By the way send me a bill and don’t spend it, n***a,’ he wrote on July 16.

Loadholt and Rivera in texts to each other allegedly complained about the delay in receiving the $100,000 payment. 

‘I’m so frustrated son I’m like ready to jump out the window,’ Loadholt wrote in one messages.

Their fortunes began to unravel when Shakeri had voluntary interviews with the FBI on the phone from Iran on September 30, October 8, October 17, October 28, and November 7.

He told them he was hired through an official in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, whom he met with at various restaurants in Tehran.

Shakeri claimed the official initially told him Alinejad stole $250,000, and promised him $1.5 million if he could locate and kill her ‘nighttime, daytime, anywhere’.

He tried to cover for his lackeys, claiming to the FBI he never asked anyone else to help with the surveillance.

Shakeri then appeared to start working as a double agent for the FBI, as he met with the Iranian official on October 7, then told FBI agents the next day what happened.

He told them the official again offered the $1.5 million, on the condition he provide video evidence that she was dead and that his team killed her.

‘It appears that [the official] contemplated the possibility that other teams had been tasked with carrying out [Alinejad]’s murder, and sought to ensure that money was paid only to the team that was able to successfully carry out the assassination,’ the FBI alleged.

Shakeri finally admitted on October 28 he had people in NYC helping with the job, but refused to identify them.

He appeared to be brokering a deal to cooperate in exchange for the release of an unnamed person. 

‘If these people gimme a green light… I’m gonna come pretty close so you guys can be convinced that [Individual-I] needs to get released,’ he said.

FBI agents confronted Shakeri on November 7, accusing him of lying to them, and he finally gave up Rivera, and though he said there was a second person he did not name them.

Shakeri claimed the Revolutionary Guard also tasked him with surveilling two Jewish American citizens, businessmen visiting NYC, who supported Israel.

However, he claimed to have not yet sent back any information about either of them, but had offered Rivera and Loadholt $500,000 to kill them.

This was also when Shakeri revealed that his Iranian contact told him in September to put aside all his other tasks on focus on assassinating Trump.

Shakeri told him would cost a ‘huge’ amount of money to pull it off, but was told ‘we have already spent a lot of money… so the money’s not an issue’.

The FBI believed this to mean Iran already spent money trying to kill Trump, so what was a little more if it got the job done.

Shakeri claimed that the Iranian official gave him seven days from the October 7 meeting to come up with a plan to kill Trump.

However, he told the FBI he didn’t plan to carry out the operation in the timeframe he was given.

Shakeri was then told to delay the plot, because Iran thought Trump would lose the election and it would then be easier to get to him without his presidential Secret Service detail.

He also claimed to the FBI that the Iranian official asked him to murder Israeli tourists in Sri Lanka in a mass shooting in October.

The US and Israeli government issued a travel warning for Sri Lanka on October 23, warning of threats of attacks on tourists in Arugam Bay.

Sri Lanka said three people were arrested over those threats, including an unnamed contact of Shakeri.

Five days later, Shakeri told the FBI he tasked that contact, whom he served time in prison alongside, with surveilling the Israeli consulate.

After he gave Iran that surveillance data, he was told to surveil a tourist location in Arugam Bay frequented by Israeli tourists.

The official told him to orchestrate a mass shooting in that area, and that his contact would provide AK-47 assault rifles and other weapons to pull it off.

Shakeri is an Afghani citizen who immigrated to the US as a child, but was deported back to Iran in 2008 after serving a 14-year sentence for robbery in New York state prisons.

He maintained an extensive prison contact base that he eventually tapped into while planning the murder-for-hire plots. 

Shakeri used a network of criminal associates he met in prison in the US to ‘supply the IRGC with operatives to conduct surveillance and assassinations of IRGC targets’, the FBI stated.

Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement that there are ‘few actors’ in the world that ‘pose as grave a threat to the national security of the United States as does Iran.’

‘The Justice Department has charged an asset of the Iranian regime who was tasked by the regime to direct a network of criminal associates to further Iran’s assassination plots against its targets, including President-elect Donald Trump,’ he said.

‘We have also charged and arrested two individuals who we allege were recruited as part of that network to silence and kill, on U.S. soil, an American journalist who has been a prominent critic of the regime. 

‘We will not stand for the Iranian regime’s attempts to endanger the American people and America’s national security.’ 

FBI Director Christopher Wray added: ‘The charges announced today expose Iran’s continued brazen attempts to target US citizens, including President-elect Donald Trump, other government leaders and dissidents who criticize the regime in Tehran.’