by Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book Substack
SDNY/EDNY Exclusive, Dec 12 – Two defendants were presented on murder for hire charges on November 7 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Magistrates Court and, as exclusively at that time reported by Inner City Press, were detained.
At midday on November 8, the SDNY US Attorney's Office announced the detention of the two, plus another man in connection with a plot to assassinate then candidate Donald J. Trump.
The complaint at Paragraph 28c recounts that "SHAKERI and CC-1 , along with others, were arrested on or about January 22, 2019, by the SLPRB in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in connection with a seizure of approximately 92 kilograms of heroin."
As exclusively noted, first on X, by Inner City Press, this is connected to a case in EDNY in Brooklyn, US v. Shawn Marshall. Not along were the same two SDNY prosecutors involved in this EDNY case - the Marshall complaint Marshall traveled to Sri Lanka that time frame. It references 91 kilos of heroin, versus 92. And the EDNY Magistrate redacted the name of "Individual 1," a citizen of Afghanistan. Complaint on Patreon here and now on DocumentCloud here
So the two cases are connected. It seems Marshall is CC-1 in the Shakeri complaint, and Shakeri is "Individual-1" in the Marshall complaint - and one surmises they are trying to flip Marshall, by charging him "only" with drugs and guns, in the District next door to which the SDNY prosecutors traveled.
On December 5 the SDNY case was indicted and wheeled out to Judge Lewis J. Liman.
On December 12 Judge Liman held a conference. Inner City Press was there, thread:
Judge Liman : How do you plead? Defendants: Not guilty. Not guilty.
AUSA: We have Apple, Google accounts. We did premises searches, found gun... These two targeted a prominent Iranian dissident. There may be CIPA litigation. The 3rd defendant remains at large.
Trial estimated at 2 weeks. Next conference March 5, 2023
SDNY: US v. Shakeri, et al., 24-cr-670 (Liman)
***
Your support means a lot. As little as $5 a month helps keep us going and grants you access to exclusive bonus material on our Patreon page. Click here to become a patron.
Feedback: Editorial [at] innercitypress.com
