Man Sentenced to 15 Years in Plot to Kill Iranian Dissident
Carlisle Rivera, a man involved in a murder-for-hire plot targeting Iranian dissident Masih Alinejad, was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Wednesday, according to CBS News. Rivera was allegedly hired by Iranian operative Farhad Shakeri to assassinate Alinejad, a vocal critic of the Iranian regime's repression of women.
Alinejad confronted Rivera at his sentencing in federal court in Manhattan. "Now I'm going to face the killer, my would-be assassin," Alinejad said before the sentencing, according to CBS News. "But the main killer in my eyes is the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps)."
Prosecutors stated that Shakeri was "tasked by the regime to direct a network of criminal associates to further Iran's assassination plots against its targets," CBS News reported. They alleged that he directed two men in New York, including Rivera. Alinejad has reportedly survived three plots by Iran's regime to kill or kidnap her.
In other news, the FBI executed a search warrant at a Fulton County, Georgia, election facility on Wednesday, CBS News reported. Agents were seen entering and exiting the warehouse at 5600 Campbellton Fairburn Road, the site of the Fulton County Elections Hub Operations Center. An FBI spokesperson confirmed the agency was "executing a court authorized law enforcement action" but did not provide further details about the nature of the search. A spokesperson for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation stated that their agency was not involved in the operation. Fulton County spokesperson Jessica Corbitt-Dominguez said that the search focused on records related to the 2020 election.
Also on Wednesday, the death toll from the recent winter storm impacting a large part of the United States rose to at least 41, CBS News confirmed. Local officials reported approximately 20 additional deaths that appeared to be related to the winter weather. Causes of death included hypothermia, car accidents, snowplow accidents, sledding accidents, and cardiac emergencies linked to shoveling snow. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said 10 people had been found dead in the cold in New York City, though not all causes of death had been confirmed.
In Minneapolis on Tuesday, Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar was sprayed with an unknown substance at a town hall, CBS News reported. The alleged perpetrator, identified by local police as 55-year-old Anthony Kazmierczak, was immediately apprehended and booked into Hennepin County Jail on suspicion of third-degree assault. Police said Omar was not injured. According to CBS News, Omar was calling for the abolishment of ICE and for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to resign when the incident occurred. Local police said the suspect used a syringe.
CBS News also reported on a man inside Iran who described a violent crackdown on protesters in early January. The man, who remained anonymous for fear of government reprisal, described what he called a "massacre" of anti-government protesters. He stated that January 8 and 9 were believed to be the "bloodiest, most brutal days in the government's crackdown on protesters since it was founded in 1979." He described a crackdown on January 9 in the city of Yazd.
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