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Another Obama concession to Iran: $10 million claim dropped in prisoner deal

Jan 28, 2016 6:15 am By Robert Spencer

Nader Modanlo was accused of taking an illegal $10 million payment from Iran. “U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein said the evidence against Modanlo had been disclosed in court and proved ‘beyond any reasonable doubt that Mr. Modanlo secretly helped Iran launch a satellite for $10 million.'” The U.S. dropped the $10 million claim against him as part of the recent prisoner swap, thereby annoying Modanlo, who wanted to appeal his conviction. But Modanlo is free in any case, and the larger issue here is that it appears that the Obama Administration will stop at absolutely nothing and make any concession it can possibly make in order to appease the Iranian mullahs.

Nader Modanlo

“Exclusive: White House dropped $10 million claim in Iran prisoner deal,” by Joel Schectman and Yeganeh Torbati, CBS News, January 27, 2016:

Nader Modanlo was facing five more years in federal prison when he got an extraordinary offer: U.S. President Barack Obama was ready to commute his sentence as part of this month’s historic and then still-secret prisoner swap with Iran. He said no.

To sweeten the deal, the U.S. administration then dropped a claim against the Iran-born aerospace engineer for $10 million that a Maryland jury found he had taken as an illegal payment from Iran, according to interviews with Modanlo, lawyers involved and U.S. officials with knowledge of the matter.

The surrender of the U.S. claim, which has not previously been reported, could add to scrutiny of how the Obama administration clinched a prisoner deal that has drawn criticism from Republican presidential candidates and lawmakers.

A Washington-based spokesman for the Justice Department declined to comment on discussions over the $10 million, which the jury found that Modanlo was paid to help Iran launch its first satellite in 2005. Modanlo says the money was a loan from a Swiss company for a telecoms deal.

In the prisoner swap, five Americans held in Iran were released at the same time as seven Iranians charged or imprisoned in the United States were granted pardons or had their sentences commuted. The deal accompanied the Jan. 16 implementation of a landmark agreement that curbs Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.

Even after receiving the improved offer on Friday, Jan. 15, Modanlo said he didn’t budge at first. He wanted a chance to clear his name in court, he says.

“I was mostly disappointed that I have to give up my right to appeal,” Modanlo, 55, told Reuters in one of his first interviews since being released.

“If they believe in their justice system why would they deprive me of it? Let them prove me wrong.”

As part of their clemency agreements, all of the Iranians had to renounce any claims against the U.S. government. All but one had been accused of violating the economic sanctions the United States has enforced against Iran for decades.

Modanlo’s reluctance to accept Obama’s offer became an eleventh-hour complication to an otherwise carefully staged deal with Iran that had been negotiated in secret for months by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his Iranian counterpart.

He only agreed to accept the clemency offer on Saturday, Jan. 16 as the clock ticked toward what U.S. officials said was the final deadline, according to Modanlo and U.S. officials.

He was freed the next day from a federal prison near Richmond, Virginia. The release marked an abrupt conclusion to his case after a sprawling, decade-long investigation into Modanlo’s role in brokering Iran’s access to space technology. U.S. federal agents had pursued evidence from the suburbs of Washington to Switzerland and Russia.

Modanlo was serving the longest sentence of any of the seven Iranians and had the most extensive, established connections to Iran’s government.

He was also the only one known to have initially declined Obama’s offer, according to interviews with lawyers for the men.

An official at Iran’s interests section in Washington, Iran’s de facto embassy, testified in Modanlo’s defense at his 2013 trial. The same Iranian representative, Fariborz Jahansoozan, was instrumental in brokering the prisoner exchange in recent months, lawyers for those involved have said.

“This story is done and over with,” Jahansoozan said when reached by Reuters, declining to discuss the case in detail. “Please let it go and move forward.”

After two years in prison, Modanlo says he is finding that hard. “I know this cloud is going to be over my head forever,” he said.

AMERICAN DREAM SOURED

Modanlo grew up in northern Iran, the son of a wealthy landowner. As a child, he remembers watching the Apollo 11 mission in 1969 that put American astronauts on the moon and being inspired to become a space engineer.

Decades later, after moving to the United States and becoming a U.S. citizen, Modanlo had become a space entrepreneur with a company valued at $500 million.

He helped launch an American satellite from a Russian rocket in 1995. His company, Final Analysis, focused on the emerging field of low-orbit satellites for data services.

But a series of missteps drove the company into bankruptcy in 2001, and Modanlo was sued by a former partner, who accused him of selling missile technology to Iran.

Modanlo says U.S. authorities used the missile claim to win assistance from Switzerland in obtaining evidence against him. Raids at Modanlo’s Maryland home and office seized a truck load of documents and 120 computer hard drives but no supporting evidence for that claim, he said.

“They knew this was false. They knew I had no missile technology,” he said.

The ensuing investigation uncovered documents prosecutors say showed Modanlo brokered a deal between Iran and Russia to launch the satellite in exchange for a $10 million fee. A Maryland jury convicted him of sanctions violations after a six-week trial. He was sentenced to eight years in prison….

U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein said the evidence against Modanlo had been disclosed in court and proved “beyond any reasonable doubt that Mr. Modanlo secretly helped Iran launch a satellite for $10 million.”…

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Filed Under: Barack Obama, dhimmitude, Featured, Iran Tagged With: Nader Modanlo


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Comments

  1. Alarmed Pig Farmer says

    Jan 28, 2016 at 7:04 am

    These two highly educated men, our best and brightest, have gotten so many things done in dealing with Persia. All the accomplishments favor Persia, but so what a deal’s a deal and there was no better way. Secretary John “War Coward” Kerry, Yale, and President Barack “Hussein” Obama, Columbia and Harvard. We mere regular people see this as a debacle, it takes somebody with the vision capacity imparted at an institution of higher learning to understand the good in this.

    • Jay Boo says

      Jan 28, 2016 at 10:43 am

      Just wait until (Islam can do no wrong) Benghazi film hoax Hillary sleazes herself into office.

      Air Force 1 —
      If Hillary becomes President, Air Force 1 will be — A BROOMSTICK.
      It could be slow going relying on vampire bats to deliver in-flight messages for assistance from US Embassies while Muslim Brotherhood Huma rides sidesaddle.

  2. Marty says

    Jan 28, 2016 at 11:12 am

    As a reminder of what sort of a regime the West is dealing with,
    try this from today’s UK leftist, anti Israel newspaper, The Independent.

    “The Supreme Leader of Iran marked Holocaust Memorial Day yesterday
    by publishing a video disputing the authenticity of the genocide on
    his official website. ”

    The civilised world should have no truck with mohammedans.

  3. Hope says

    Jan 28, 2016 at 4:25 pm

    Obama. Kerry. Hillary. Puppets. Groveling, sniveling puppets and a disgrace to the United States of America. Vote for Ted Cruz or Trump and let’s end this era of humiliation and subjugation.

  4. Angemon says

    Jan 28, 2016 at 6:30 pm

    it appears that the Obama Administration will stop at absolutely nothing and make any concession it can possibly make in order to appease the Iranian mullahs.

    And how many concessions do bullies need to stop bullying others? All, of course.

  5. gravenimage says

    Jan 28, 2016 at 9:09 pm

    Another Obama concession to Iran: $10 million claim dropped in prisoner deal
    ………………….

    Just more evidence that Muslims taking hostages works with today’s dhimmi West.

  6. UNCLE VLADDI says

    Jan 29, 2016 at 5:38 pm

    MuBarak Hussein Osama is basically saying this to Iran:

    “HEY, LOOK! WE’RE SO SORRY WE FROZE YOUR FUNDS BACK IN 1979 WHEN YOU TOOK OUR EMBASSY PEOPLE HOSTAGE FOR 444 DAYS! OUR BAD!

    HE’S APOLOGIZING TO THEM FOR THEIR CRIMES AGAINST US!

    AND HE’S PAYING THEM DIVIDENDS FOR COMMITTING THOSE CRIMES!

    HE’S A TRAITOR: CLEARLY AIDING AND ABETTING AN ENEMY WHICH REMAINS SHAMELESSLY AND VOCALLY PUBLICLY DEDICATED TO OUR DESTRUCTION!

  7. underbed cat says

    Jan 29, 2016 at 6:47 pm

    Cha ching, Cha ching……Iran is smiling their guy has taken possession of the keys to the American cash register and the aroma has spread to some of the Republican anti- islamophobe, cool cash don’t offend dudes. So let us make sure the voided cost of living increase for 2016….has nothing to do with the payoffs, I mean transfers of cash to the chanting dta crowd. None too obvious.

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