The two men who allegedly posed as federal agents while “lavishing gifts” on Secret Service agents assigned to the White House pose a “risk to national security” and should be held without bail pending trial, federal prosecutors said Friday.
Arian Taherzadeh, 40, and Haider Ali, 35, of Washington, D.C., were “not merely playing dress-up,” prosecutors said in a memo urging a judge to keep the pair locked up. Their “impersonation scheme was sufficiently realistic to convince other government employees, including law enforcement agents,” that their fake employment was legitimate, according to court documents.
Both men had firearms, ammunition, body armor and tactical gear, as well as surveillance equipment, prosecutors said, and they were “engaged in conduct that represented a serious threat to the community, compromised the operations of a federal law enforcement agency, and created a potential risk to national security.”
