Potomac Man Convicted of Providing Satellite Service to Iran

Potomac resident Nader Modanlo has been convicted of illegally providing satellite services to Iran, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maryland.

Modanlo—a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Iran—and others formed a conspiracy, the statement reported, to launch the first-ever Iranian satellite into orbit. The earth observation satellite—equipped with a camera—launched from Russia on Oct. 27, 2005.

Modanlo was charged with violating the Iran trade embargo of 1995 and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. He also was charged with money laundering and obstructing bankruptcy proceedings, the statement added.

The conviction Monday followed a decade-long investigation by the Homeland Security Investigations office, said William Winter, Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent in Charge.

According to evidence presented at his six-week trial, Modanlo managed space and science programs for the Department of Defense and NASA.

Between January 2000 and Nov. 27, 2007, Modanlo's company, Final Analysis, Inc.—for which Modanlo was principal owner, chairman and president—contracted with Russian government-owned aerospace company POLYOT to launch telecommunication satellites from Plesetsk, Russia (about 180 miles east of the Russia-Finland border).

For the Iranian satellite, though, another company was needed to get around the trade embargo. Prospect Telecom was formed in Switzerland in 2002 "to conceal Iranian participation as an investor/lendor in Modanlo's satellite telecommunications activities," the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maryland reported in a statement.

Prospect Telecom's bank account paid $10 million to Modanlo's company New York Satellite Industries, LLC (formed to buy out Final Analysis when Final Analysis verged on bankruptcy), the statement added. 

Modanlo faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison for the conspiracy, 10 years in prison on each of two counts of violating the trade embargo, 20 years on money laundering related to the transfer of the $10 million from Switzerland to Modanlo's New York Satellite Industries bank account, 10 years for each of five subsequent money-laundering transactions (which disbursed most of the $10 million) and 20 years for obstruction of a bankruptcy proceeding, according to the statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maryland.

The government also seeks the forfeiture of the $10 million, the statement added.

Sentencing is scheduled for Sept. 11, 2013, according to the statement.

The other defendants charged in the indictment—Hamid Malmirian, 53; Reza Heidari, 52; Mohammad Modares, 44; Abdol Reza Mehrdad, 43; and Sirous Naseri, 55—are Iranian nationals who remain at large, the statement added.