Human growth hormone. Shutterstock.com

The prosecution by the U.S. attorney in Atlanta of a renowned Iranian medical researcher and two former students now teaching in the U.S. includes a fourth physician — an Iranian American who fled persecution in his home country three decades ago.

But indictments of Iranian national Matteo Taerri, a former Atlanta physician now living in Tampa, by federal grand juries in Atlanta and Tampa and court records suggest federal authorities led by agents with the U.S. Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security may have cobbled together an alleged conspiracy.

Ensnared are Dr. Masoud Soleimani, an internationally renowned Iranian medical researcher who has produced ground-breaking research in stem cell and regenerative medicine at the University of Tehran; a well-respected assistant professor and senior researcher at Yale University's medical school; and a medical researcher in regenerative medicine in Kentucky.

The Atlanta indictments accusing Soleimani, Mahboobe Ghaedi and Maryam Jazayeri of violating U.S. sanctions rest on eight vials of human growth hormone intended for Soleimani that were removed from Jazayeri's luggage by customs agents in Atlanta in September 2016 as she was en route to Iran to visit relatives. Jazayeri allegedly obtained the hormone from Ghaedi to deliver to Soleimani, according to court records.

Ghaedi is a permanent U.S. resident and an assistant professor at Yale University School of Medicine, whose lung regeneration research has resulted in a functioning transplantable lung, according to court records.

Jazayeri is a naturalized U.S. citizen and Kentucky resident who has conducted similar regenerative and stem cell  research at the University of Louisville, court records say.

The Georgia indictment of Taerri, a U.S. citizen who was granted asylum in 2003, stems from his attempt to transport to Iran an 0.2-centimeter-square microfilter used in medical research in August 2016 that, according to a U.S. Commerce agent, allegedly was intended for Soleimani. At the time, Taerri's nephew was a medical student of Soleimani's, according to court records.

Federal prosecutors took nearly two years before pursuing criminal charges, which Taerri's Florida defense attorney told a federal magistrate in Florida could have easily been addressed with civil fines. But the two-year delay means the pending prosecutions are playing out against a political landscape that has changed dramatically since customs agents first seized the human growth hormone from Jazayeri and the microfilter from Taerri during the waning days of President Barack Obama's administration.

Federal prosecutors didn't secure indictments until 2018, more than 18 months after President Donald Trump's election and not until after he announced the U.S. was withdrawing from its 2015 nuclear accord with Iran and reinstating trade sanctions, many of which were suspended after the deal was signed in 2015.

By then, Trump, in one of his first executive acts, signed an executive order largely banning immigration from seven countries, including Iran, and raising legal questions about the status of Iranians who are permanent U.S. residents.

The pending charges also shed light on the complexity of regulations and laws governing what may be exported to Iran without a license, the difficulties of securing accurate information about when licenses may be required and suspicions by government agents that items used in medical research could also be used for biological or chemical warfare.

An agent with the Bureau of Industry and Security testified in Taerri's Florida bond hearing last December that the government had no information that the microfilter was intended for use in chemical or biological warfare or terrorism. But agent Ariel Leinwand said, “We can't rule it out either.”

“We have no information as to what the ultimate use of those items were, whether they were for good or for bad,” Leinwald acknowledged. “We have no evidence either way.”

Taerri's Florida defense lawyer, Matthew P. Farmer of Farmer & Fitzgerald in Tampa, suggested in court that the microfilter that led to the Atlanta indictment does not currently require a license. Leinwand said that, no matter what the size of the filter, Taerri still needed a license “because we do not trust the Iranian government or the regime or anyone that may be receiving this filter to use it only for helpful purposes. We cannot determine whether or not it would be used for terrorism or any other nefarious purpose.”

The Atlanta defendants became at least tangentially entangled in the arrest by authorities of Taerri's Tampa housemate on federal charges of operating an illegal pill mill and Taerri's own work as a physician at the clinic until shortly before federal drug agents shut it down.

Taerri hasn't been charged in connection with his housemate's arrest, but he has been charged with illegally structuring more than $275,000 in deposits to multiple bank accounts to avoid bank reporting requirements intended to forestall money laundering. Some of those funds allegedly were channeled to Taerri's housemate, Zachary Bird, to post his bond, Tampa prosecutors said.

Soleimani and Taerri have both been detained without bond for nearly six months.

 

Taerri, who was indicted in Atlanta on Oct. 24, 2018, is expected to enter a guilty plea June 13, said Atlanta defense attorney Steven Berne.

“We have done a lot of investigation, and we have not found — and the government does not contend — that Dr. Taerri had any nefarious purpose,” Berne said. The filter was “for medical research purposes only. We intend to argue for a more lenient sentence because there was no intent to harm.”

Taerri's plea, the lawyer added, is limited to an acknowledgement that he “did not get special permission to bring the filter from the United States to Iran. That's it.”

It was Taerri who first attracted the attention of agents with the U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security in 2015, according to court documents in Tampa and Atlanta.

During a presentation at a biotech company that sells biological reagents, agents asked about any shipments by customers to Iran or Dubai. According to an affidavit, Taerri's company, Advanced Anti-Aging and Aesthetic Medicine, surfaced. Four months later, agents met Taerri, who admitted he shipped or hand-carried samples of biological enzymes to Iran for his nephew's medical research under Soleimani's supervision.

During the interview, Taerri told agents he was familiar with the Iran sanctions but he believed medical items were exempt. Agents told him it “was likely” the items required a license. They said they would “follow up” after they secured a license determination from the Department of Commerce.

At the time, agents asked Taerri if there were any other uses for the enzymes he procured for his nephew. “After pausing, Taerri volunteered that they could be used in a chemical/biological weapons program,” the affidavit said. “He then stated that he doubted Iran had a chemical or biological weapons program, since Iraq had used chemical weapons against Iran in the past, and Iran had experienced the devastating impact of these types of weapons firsthand.”

Taerri has not been charged with shipping the reagents that the agents questioned him about. Agents eventually were told by government licensing officials that Taerri needed a license to ship the proteins, a form of growth hormone. They then secured search warrants for undisclosed Yahoo and Google email accounts.

A July 2016 report by Commerce agents in court files said an email review revealed that, even after being told it was illegal to ship biological samples to Iran without a Commerce Department license, Taerri continued to do so, and Soleimani was one of several people in Iran for whom the samples were intended.

However, a September 2016 license determination from the Bureau of Industry and Security also in court records concluded a special license was not needed for the pharmaceutical items in question unless a potential exporter had reason to know that a specific transaction would be used in activities related to nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.

Tampa prosecutors acknowledged during Taerri's bond hearing, “There is nothing in the indictment charging [Taerri] with a specific intent to commit terrorism or any type of crime involving chemical or biological weapon. It's simply for knowing and willfully not acquiring the proper licensing.”