A federal judge sentenced a Brooklyn man to 15 years in prison this past Wednesday for his role in a murder-for-hire plot orchestrated by Iranian operatives targeting a prominent dissident-journalist on U.S. soil, underscoring Washington’s broader efforts to counter transnational assassination schemes.

Carlisle Rivera, 50, a convicted killer with a long criminal history, pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and conspiracy to commit stalking in connection with the scheme aimed at killing Masih Alinejad, an Iranian-American journalist and human-rights activist critical of Tehran’s government. The sentence was imposed in federal court in Manhattan by U.S. District Judge Lewis J. Liman.

Prosecutors said Rivera was recruited in 2024 by Farhad Shakeri, a New York-born associate now believed to be living in Iran and acting as an asset of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, to locate and assassinate Alinejad in New York City. Shakeri, whom authorities allege was acting at the direction of Iran’s regime, offered Rivera $100,000 for the killing.

Rivera then enlisted a co-defendant, Jonathan Loadholt, and used funds provided by the IRGC asset to buy a firearm and “burner” mobile phones. The group stalked Alinejad for months, surveilling her movements, including at a public event and near a Brooklyn residence where they believed she lived, according to court filings. Rivera’s voice messages to Shakeri — in which he described the difficulty of finding Alinejad — were among the intercepted evidence cited by prosecutors.

Rivera was arrested on Nov. 7, 2024, before he could carry out the plot. Authorities recovered a gun with a scratched out serial number from his home shortly after the arrest.

In announcing the sentence, Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Eisenberg said the punishment “underscores the consequences of conspiring with a regime that relies on violence and intimidation to survive,” signaling that the Justice Department will continue to pursue foreign-backed assassination plots aggressively.

Alinejad, who has survived multiple alleged Iranian government assassination and kidnapping efforts since relocating to the United States, thanked law enforcement for thwarting the latest plot. She has also publicly called on U.S. authorities to hold accountable those at the highest levels of Iran’s leadership for directing such operations.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)