A Staten Island man was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for his role in an Iranian government-directed plot targeting journalist, author, and human rights activist Masih Alinejad, the Justice Department announced.
Jonathan Loadholt, 37, was ordered to serve the prison term by U.S. District Judge Lewis J. Liman in Manhattan after previously pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit stalking and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Loadholt will also serve three years of supervised release following his prison term.
Prosecutors said Loadholt was recruited into the murder-for-hire scheme by his friend and co-defendant Carlisle Rivera, a convicted murderer, who was himself hired by criminal confederate Farhad Shakeri to kill Alinejad — a U.S. citizen and vocal critic of the Iranian regime — on orders from senior members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to court filings.
Shakeri offered Rivera $100,000 to locate and kill Alinejad, and Rivera brought Loadholt into the operation. Using funds sent by Shakeri, the two men purchased a firearm and burner cellphones, used fake license plates on Loadholt’s car, and conducted months of surveillance on Alinejad — including following her to a speaking engagement at Fairfield University and repeatedly staking out a Brooklyn residence where the IRGC believed she lived, prosecutors said.
Text messages recovered by investigators showed Loadholt expressing frustration over a delayed $10,000 advance payment for the killing. “So no 10 up front I’m guessing??” Loadholt wrote to Rivera in July 2024, according to court documents. Loadholt was arrested Nov. 7, 2024, before the plot could be carried out. Agents recovered more than two dozen rounds of ammunition at his residence.
The case is part of a broader pattern of Iranian government efforts to silence Alinejad, who has spent years publicizing the regime’s treatment of women and political dissidents, according to the Justice Department. Iranian intelligence previously plotted to kidnap Alinejad in 2020 and 2021, and the IRGC hired members of the Russian mob to kill her in 2022, prosecutors said. After those efforts failed, the IRGC turned to Shakeri’s network.
Rivera was sentenced in January 2026 to 15 years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire. Shakeri remains at large.
The case was investigated by the FBI’s New York Joint Terrorism Task Force and the FBI Washington Field Office.
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