Funding the oppression and genocidal aspirations of the Islamic Republic from the heart of the Great Satan. “We will hang the capitalists with the rope that they sell us,” as Lenin is supposed to have said.
“Judge: Iran-backed company behind NYC office tower,” by Larry Neumeister for the Associated Press, September 16 (thanks to Lookmann):
NEW YORK (AP) “” An office tower is subject to forfeiture because revenue from it was secretly funneled to a state-owned Iranian bank in violation of a U.S. trade embargo, a judge ruled Monday.
U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest made the forfeiture finding in Manhattan, ruling in a case brought by the U.S. government in 2008.
The U.S. government had said the Alavi Foundation’s sole partner in the ownership of the 36-story Manhattan building was a shell company fronting for a secret interest held by the state-owned bank of Iran, Bank Melli. The Iranian government has been designated by the U.S. as a sponsor of international terrorism, an allegation it has repeatedly denied.
The judge agreed that monetary transfers by the shell company, Assa Co., to Bank Melli violated money laundering statutes.
“There is substantial, un-contradicted evidence that Assa is owned and controlled by Bank Melli, and that Bank Melli is wholly owned and controlled by Iran,” the judge said.
She rejected Alavi’s “core defense,” that a jury should decide whether the foundation knew that Assa was controlled by Iran between 1995, when providing services to Iran became illegal, and the date of the lawsuit. She said that many of the Alavi board members who were indisputably involved in the creation of Assa as a front for Bank Melli in 1989 remained with or returned to positions with Alavi after 1995.
“The Government argues that Alavi asserts a sort of collective amnesia,” she said. “The court finds the analogy apt and its reality implausible. No rational juror could believe in such extraordinary amnesia.”…