Judge Paul Friedman of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia during The Judge Thomas A. Flannery Lecture Series. May 26, 2010. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ NLJ

He was observed walking slowly, reviewing his surroundings and looking into cars and the reflection of store windows. He took circuitous routes to meetings, changing his clothes beforehand, employing an approach that bore hallmarks of "intelligence tradecraft," an FBI agent wrote in 2018.

On Wednesday, the subject of the FBI's surveillance, Ahmadreza Doostdar, was sentenced to more than three years in prison for serving as an illegal agent of Iran, concluding a prosecution in Washington that addressed the global tensions between the U.S. and Iran.

Doostdar, a dual Iranian-U.S. citizen, was charged in August 2018 with surveilling members of Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, or MEK, a group that advocates for the overthrow of the Iranian government. Another Iranian citizen, Majid Ghorbani, was also charged with serving as an illegal agent of Iran in connection with the covert surveillance.

Both men pleaded guilty last year, with Doostdar admitting to charges that he served as an agent of Iran without notifying the U.S. attorney general. Ghorbani, who pleaded guilty to a single charge of providing services to Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions, was sentenced Wednesday to 30 months in prison.

In a two-hour hearing before U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman of the District of Columbia, prosecutor Jocelyn Ballantine said Doostdar had recruited Ghorbani to photograph and identify MEK members based in the U.S., with the goal of disrupting the group. Ballantine said the Iranian government has a record of "horrible acts of violence" against MEK, adding that the photographs provided information that could help Iran target the group's members.

"These are not just pictures," she said.

While acknowledging his methods were unsophisticated in some respects, Ballantine said Doostdar used code names and a payphone to communicate with Ghorbani, a "tactic he had been taught by the Iranian intelligence service," she said.

The head of DOJ's national security division, John Demers, said in a statement that the "case illustrates Iran's targeting of Americans in the United States in order to silence those who oppose the Iranian regime or otherwise further its goals." The prosecutions, Demers said, "should serve as a reminder to anyone here working covertly for Iran that the American law enforcement will pursue you to protect this country, its citizens and the First Amendment principles upon which it was founded."

Jessie Liu, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, in Washington, D.C. April 12, 2019. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM

"The sentences in this case illustrate the high cost to those who act as agents of the Iranian government in the United States or provide services that benefit the government of Iran, especially when those activities target the free speech and peaceful assembly rights of people in the United States," Jessie Liu, the U.S. attorney for D.C., said in a statement.

Doostdar's sentencing came just weeks after a U.S. drone strike in Iraq killed Qassim Soleimani, a major general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps who commanded Iran's elite security and intelligence forces. Iran later launched missiles at air bases in Iraq housing U.S. troops, an attack that resulted in no American casualties, prompting President Donald Trump to declare last week that Iran appears to be "standing down."

In a brief statement, Doostdar told the judge: "I just wanted to apologize for what I've done, especially to the court and especially to my family."

In the buildup to Doostdar's sentencing, his defense team cautioned against the "dangers of mixing politics—especially foreign policy politics—with the criminal justice system" in the case. Urging Friedman to "block out all the geopolitical madness," Doostdar's defense lawyers noted that his sentencing was set to "take place 12 days after President Trump personally issued an executive drone-strike order to assassinate" Soleimani.

In court Wednesday, Ballantine and Doostdar's lead defense lawyer, Thomas Durkin, debated whether the sentence should be influenced by the desire to deter Iran from conducting surveillance in the U.S. Ballantine argued that Iran has exploited dual citizens, like Doostdar, for intelligence.

"It is important to deter the government of Iran," she said.

Friedman appeared skeptical of that argument, questioning whether a stiff sentence for Doostdar would chill the Iranian government "from doing what they want to do." His 38-month sentence for Doostdar fell nearly two years below what prosecutors recommended: A prison term of 57 and 71 months. For Ghorbani, prosecutors recommended a sentence between 46 and 57 months. For both men, prosecutors recommended a prison term "at or near the high end" of the range.

Durkin, a Chicago-based lawyer who has represented several accused Islamic State supporters, sought to minimize Doostdar's role, describing him as a bit of a "goof" who "hasn't exactly made his mark on the world."

"I get that geopolitics are important," he said. "But he is not a major geopolitical player."