Men charged in Homeland Security impersonation plot to be released from jail pending trial

The two men accused of impersonating federal agents will be released from jail, a federal judge ruled Tuesday after three days of marathon hearings where prosecutors and defense lawyers clashed over whether the men were operatives of a hostile government.

Magistrate Judge Michael Harvey said the Justice Department’s arguments were “overblown” and prosecutors had not met the legal standard required to keep either Arian Taherzadeh or Haider Ali in jail. Both will be released on home detention and will not be allowed to go to airports or foreign embassies or to talk to any of the federal agents they allegedly duped.

During his hourlong ruling, Harvey lambasted the Justice Department’s claims that the men were dangerous, were trying to compromise agents and were tied to a foreign government.

The government made “no showing that national security information was in fact compromised,” Harvey said of Ali and Taherzadeh’s interactions with members of the Secret Service, nor that “other sensitive information was in fact compromised, or that was the intention of the defendants when they gave the gifts in the first place.”

“There is no evidence of foreign ties in this case,” Harvey said, adding that there was no “suggestion that any foreign government that is hostile to the United States” was involved in the alleged plot. – READ MORE