NEW YORK, Nov. 5 (UPI) -- The director of a Singapore firm was sentenced in a federal court in New York to almost four years in prison for illegally exporting aircraft parts to Iran.
Laura Wang-Woodford, a U.S. citizen who was a director of Monarch Aviation Pte Ltd., drew a 46-month sentence Thursday for conspiring to violate the U.S. trade embargo by exporting controlled aircraft components to Iran, the U.S. Justice Department said.
Wang-Woodford also was ordered to forfeit $500,000 to the U.S. Treasury Department.
Wang-Woodford has been in jail since her arrest Dec. 23, 2007, at San Francisco International Airport. She and her husband, Brian D. Woodford, who remains at large, originally were charged in a 20-count indictment. A superseding indictment in May 2008 charged Wang-Woodford with operating Jungda International Pte Ltd., a successor to Monarch.
Between January 1998 and December 2007, the defendants exported the controlled airplane parts from the United States to the Singapore companies, then re-exported the items to companies in Tehran without getting proper government licenses, the indictment said. The aircraft parts illegally exported to Iran include aircraft shields, shears, "o" rings and switch assemblies.
"As today's sentence demonstrates, those who export restricted American technology in violation of our laws will be held accountable for their actions," David Kris, assistant U.S. attorney general for national security, said.
