April 14, 2022: -On Tuesday, the two men who were criminally charged with impersonating federal law enforcement agents were bailed.
During a hearing in U.S. District Court in Washington, prosecutors said during the hearing that they might appeal Judge G. Michael Harvey’s decision to order the release of the men, Haider Ali and Arian Taherzadeh.
Harvey said the men, who had been in jail from the previous week, could be released into the custody of relatives who live in the Washington area. They would be confined to those residences and monitored by global positioning satellite devices.
On Wednesday, Harvey stayed his decision until 9 a.m. to give prosecutors time to decide if to appeal the decision to bail.
Prosecutors said the men who duped Secret Service agents and others with their claims of being Department of Homeland Security agents had asked Harvey to detain both men still pending justice, calling them a threat to the public.
Prosecutors have said that a cache of weapons and police equipment was found in apartments maintained by the men, who loaned two expensive apartments to two Secret Service agents. They also called Ali a flight risk, given his travel history to Pakistan and Iran.
Prosecutors said that while the men claimed to be engaged in covert operations for the DHS, “they compromised United States Secret Service (USSS) personnel involved in protective details and with access to the White House complex by lavishing gifts upon them, including rent-free living.”
But Harvey said that the case did not meet the standards for denying bail to a defendant, particularly since neither man is charged with a crime of violence.
“In a case like this, the release should be the norm,” Harvey said.
“It’s not a crime of violence. It is a felony, but it is a felony with a maximum period of incarceration of three years.”
The judge also noted that if the duo is convicted of the crime, sentencing guidelines would recommend a jail term of just zero to six months, the lowest possible range for incarceration under those guidelines.
Four Secret Service agents who had contact with the men have been placed on administrative leave.
Among the witnesses against the men are Secret Service agents assigned to first lady Jill Biden’s protective detail and the White House.
