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Babak Broumand stood in a courtroom on Monday in shackles and a white jumpsuit as a federal choose balanced the ledger of his life.
There was the work Broumand did as an FBI agent, thwarting terrorist plots and threats from hostile nations. Some missions had been so secret they might not even be mentioned in courtroom.
After which there have been the bribes he took from an organized crime determine.
“The place do you go?” U.S. District Decide Gary Klausner requested earlier than sentencing Broumand to 6 years in jail — 4 years lower than what prosecutors had requested.
Broumand, 56, labored for twenty years within the FBI’s San Francisco subject workplace earlier than retiring in 2019 beneath a cloud of suspicion, as proof emerged that he had pocketed money and accepted lavish perks from Edgar Sargsyan, a prolific con man.
After a two-week trial, a jury in October discovered Broumand responsible of bribery, conspiring to commit bribery and cash laundering whereas acquitting him of two counts of bribery and cash laundering.
The panel sided with the federal government’s argument that Sargsyan had given Broumand bribes and different valuables — a motorbike, escorts and stays at luxurious resorts — in change for Broumand’s entry to secret legislation enforcement databases to observe investigations into Sargsyan and his associates.
Sargsyan, who held himself out as an lawyer whereas making hundreds of thousands from id theft, drug dealing and different rackets, has pleaded responsible to financial institution fraud, mendacity to federal authorities and bribing Broumand and one other federal agent, Felix Cisneros.
Cisneros was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in jail. Sargsyan has but to be sentenced.
In testimony at his personal trial, Broumand claimed that Sargsyan was a supply of knowledge for the FBI and denied that their relationship was improper.
Sargsyan stated that his boss — Levon Termendzhyan, a petroleum magnate who has since been convicted of defrauding the federal authorities — was supplying oil to the Turkish authorities and concerned in oil gross sales with the Islamic State terrorist group, Broumand testified.
Broumand denied taking money from Sargsyan and stated he accepted a pink Ducati bike towards his higher judgment, with out offering something in return.
At Monday’s sentencing listening to, Assistant U.S. Atty. Michael Morse pointed to Broumand’s admission that as a counterintelligence agent, he was “educated within the artwork of deception.”
Throughout his testimony, Broumand spun “different narratives that gave the impression of they got here out of a spy novel,” Morse stated. He requested the choose to contemplate what he characterised as Broumand’s perjury, requesting a decade in jail for the previous agent.
Earlier than Broumand addressed the choose, Klausner reminded him of his “ongoing and lifelong accountability” to not disclose labeled data.
Standing together with his wrists and ankles chained collectively, Broumand stated that after fleeing Iran as a toddler, “I fell in love with this nation, and its freedom, that I adopted. And it adopted me.”
Of his work for the FBI, Broumand stated, “I used to be capable of save numerous lives, your honor, and I used to be mainly capable of change the course of historical past to the advantage of america.”
He apologized for accepting what he described as “items” however maintained that he thought of Sargsyan a good friend and didn’t know him to be concerned in felony exercise.
In requesting a sentence of not more than 18 months, Broumand’s lawyer, Steven Gruel, submitted proof of the awards the FBI agent acquired over his profession.
They included not solely accolades from the FBI but in addition a plaque with the inscription, “In appreciation for all of your help, out of your CIA colleagues in San Francisco,” and one other that learn, “To Babak Broumand, from your pals at MI5,” the UK’s home safety service.
Gruel additionally filed with the courtroom a letter written by Frank Montoya Jr., a retired FBI official who supervised Broumand on the bureau’s San Francisco workplace from 2009 to 2011.
Broumand “labored for me in robust and harmful locations world wide, usually with little to guard him however his personal wits,” Montoya wrote.
“The form of work that Babak did, usually within the shadows of a grey and treacherous world, regularly has a debilitating influence on those that do it,” he continued. “Figuring out the place to attract the road and when to return to actuality can change into an exceedingly troublesome job when your very life is determined by your potential to dwell a lie.”
Earlier than handing down the six-year sentence, Klausner stated Montoya’s letter was “extraordinarily necessary on this case.”
He pointed to not the reward or the psychological insights however to a different line: “There ought to be penalties for breaking the legislation, particularly amongst those that occupy positions of belief.”
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