WASHINGTON, Oct. 26 (UPI) -- A Georgia man was sentenced to nearly four years in prison Wednesday in a plot to supply Iran with U.S. military aircraft parts, the Justice Department said.
Besides drawing a 46-month prison term, Michael Edward Todd also was fined $10,000 and ordered to forfeit $160,362 in his efforts to illegally export components for fighter jets and attack helicopters from the United States to Iran, the department said in a release.
Todd is president of The Parts Guys LLC, a Port Orange, Fla., company that maintains a warehouse at a municipal airport in Macon, Ga.
Todd was arrested in December in Atlanta, and he and his co-defendant Hamid "Hank" Seifi, an Iranian-born U.S. national, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate the Arms Export Control Act in May, the Justice Department said. Court documents indicated Todd conspired with others to export the components without getting the required U.S. export licenses. These components included military parts for the Bell AH-1 attack helicopter, the UH-1 Huey attack helicopter, as well as the F-5 and F-4 fighter jets.
"This case demonstrates the importance of keeping America's sensitive military technology from falling into the wrong hands," said Michael J. Moor, U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee. "Today, Michael Todd is being held accountable for his role in a broad conspiracy to supply Iran with advanced military aircraft technology that is restricted for export from the United States."
