The prosecution by the U.S. attorney in Atlanta  of a renowned Iranian medical researcher and two of his 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, Florida—by federal grand juries in Atlanta and Florida and court records in those cases suggest that 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 research scientist 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 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 small 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 medical 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 waited nearly two years before pursuing criminal charges—which Taerri's Florida defense attorney told a federal magistrate judge 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, also had signed an executive order largely banning immigration from seven countries, including Iran, and that also raised legal questions about the status of Iranians who are currently permanent U.S. residents.

The pending charges have also shed light on the complexity of regulations and laws governing what may be exported to Iran without a license, the difficulties attendant in 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, even when they have no proof.

An agent with the Commerce Department's  Bureau of Industry and Security testified in Taerri's Florida bond hearing last December that the government had no information that the microfilter Taerri is charged with attempting  to take to Iran in his luggage 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.”

The Atlanta defendants have also become at least tangentially entangled in the arrest by federal authorities in Florida 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 in order to avoid federal reporting requirements intended to forestall money laundering. Some of those funds allegedly were channeled to Taerri's housemate, Zachary Bird, to post his bond, federal prosecutors in Florida have said. Florida prosecutors so far have not linked the pending drug charges against Bird to the sanctions violation indictments pending against Taerri and the other defendants in Atlanta.

The two-year-old attempt to deliver items to Soleimani that are commonly used in medical research and that defense lawyers contend are exempt from federal export licensing requirements led federal authorities to secretly indict Soleimani after he sought a visa last year to travel to the U.S. for a yearlong research fellowship at the Mayo Clinic. The government issued the visa, canceled it while Soleimani was flying to the U.S., then took him into custody when he landed last October. Soleimani and Taerri have both been detained without bond for nearly six months.

A federal magistrate judge in Atlanta has determined he had no authority to release Soleimani because, absent a valid visa, the Iranian professor no longer has permission to be in the U.S., said Leonard Franco, Soleimani's Atlanta defense attorney.

Ghaedi is free after posting a $250,000 bond. Jazayeri also is free on a $200,000 bond. Matteo, Ghaedi and Jazayeri were indicted the same day as U.S.  authorities detained Soleimani. If convicted, all face potential prison terms of five to six years.

Attorneys for Soleimani, Ghaedi and Jazayeri in Atlanta have all filed motions to dismiss the pending sanctions charges on grounds that the single attempt to transport the vials of growth hormone  to Iran was legal and exempt from licensing requirements.

Ghaedi attorney Joe Whitley—a Baker Donelson partner in Atlanta who has served twice as a U.S. attorney and as  general counsel for the U.S. Department of Homeland security—has moved to sever Ghaedi's case from Soleimani.

Jazayeri's Atlanta attorney, Page Pate, has filed a similar motion on his client's behalf. Whitley would not comment on the case but has argued in court papers that recent disclosures by federal prosecutors in Atlanta reflect an allegedly “lengthy investigation” tied to Taerri and “apparently several unindicted or separately indicted co-conspirators who have no direct ties to Dr. Ghaedi.”

Whitley said in his motion that Georgia defense attorneys are in accord that the  alleged conduct at the heart of the Georgia indictment “is actually lawful.”

Taerri—who was indicted in Atlanta on Oct. 24, 2018—is expected to enter a guilty plea on June 13, said his 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,” said Berne. The filter on which the alleged sanctions violation is based 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 made inquiries 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 with Taerri, who admitted he had 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 that 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 had 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 certain Yahoo and Google email accounts. The identities of the holders of those accounts have been redacted in court records.

A July 2016  report by Commerce agents in court files said that a review of those emails revealed that, even after being told it was illegal to ship biological samples to Iran without obtaining a license from the Commerce Department's Office of Foreign Control, Taerri continued to do so and that 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 that 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.

Florida 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.”

At Taerri's bond hearing, when asked by the magistrate judge what evidence the government had that Taerri had willfully violated government sanctions, Leinwand explained that he had given Taerri “a copy of our thick pamphlet called, 'Don't Let This Happen to You'” which lays out “multiple scenarios, cases, investigations.”

Leinwand said there are “millions and millions of commodities” and that agents “explicitly told Dr. Taerri that he was to read through the pamphlet carefully” to make sure that he had the required licenses or that a license was not needed before taking any goods or merchandise to Iran.

Leinwand also said that Taerri did tell customs officials that the microfilter was for use in medical research and that he understood that, as such, it was exempt from licensing requirements. Leinwand said she never responded to his query because, “I'm not authorized to answer that question because I'm not a licensing officer.”

When Taerri's Florida defense lawyer suggested that the specific small microfilter that led to the Atlanta indictment does not currently require a license, Leinwand replied 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.”