A Staten Island man was sentenced on Wednesday to 10 years in federal prison for participating in a plot to kill a journalist and prominent critic of Iran‘s government in a case prosecutors say was directed by operatives tied to Tehran.
Jonathan Loadholt, 37, pleaded guilty earlier this year to conspiracy to commit stalking and money laundering for his role surveilling the target, identified as a journalist and activist critical of the Iranian regime, Masih Alinejad, the Justice Department said.
Alinejad, an outspoken opponent of Iran’s compulsory hijab laws and treatment of women, has lived in New York and has been the target of multiple Iranian plots in recent years, including a 2021 kidnapping attempt prosecutors said involved plans to transport her by boat to Venezuela and then Iran.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, Loadholt worked with another New York man to stalk Alinejad outside her Brooklyn home in 2024 after being recruited by an associate linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Prosecutors said Loadholt accepted cash payments and used encrypted communications while helping conduct surveillance intended to facilitate Alinejad’s killing.
“Tehran attempted to murder a U.S. journalist in the United States simply because she exposed a few of that regime’s many abuses,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Eisenberg said. “The defendant now stands convicted and sentenced to a lengthy prison sentence for his role in this plot. The Department and its colleagues will work tirelessly to protect Americans and to seek justice when our laws are broken.”
According to prosecutors, Loadholt’s co-defendant, Carlisle Rivera, also known as “Pop,” was hired by Farhad Shakeri to murder Alinejad on instructions from high-ranking members of the Guard.
Shakeri offered Rivera $100,000 for him and Loadholt to locate and kill Alinejad. Rivera then recruited Loadholt, and the two used money sent by Shakeri to conduct surveillance, buy a firearm, and purchase burner cellphones.
The men followed Alinejad to a public speaking event at Fairfield University and repeatedly stalked her home. In messages cited by the Justice Department, Loadholt and Rivera discussed expected payments and shared updates and photographs related to the plot.
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Loadholt was arrested on Nov. 7, 2024, before he and Rivera could carry out the killing. Law enforcement agents recovered more than two dozen rounds of ammunition from his residence, prosecutors said.
Rivera was sentenced in January to 15 years in prison after previously pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire. Shakeri remains at large.