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Dec. 2 (UPI) -- A Washington, D.C., man has been sentenced to nearly three years in federal prison for impersonating a federal agent in a cloak-and-dagger scheme that ensnared the U.S. Secret Service last year. Arian Taherzadeh will serve 33 months under a sentence imposed Friday by U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who also ordered Taherzadeh to spend an additional 36 months on supervised release.
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He was also ordered to pay $706,218 in restitution, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia said in a statement.
The sentence comes after Taherzadeh pleaded guilty in 2022 to three criminal counts for conspiracy, voyeurism and weapons possession in connection with a years-long scheme that also led to the suspensions of four Secret Service agents.
Taherzadeh and fellow co-defendant Haider Ali pleaded guilty to posing as agents for the Department of Homeland Security. Previously, Ali received more than five years in prison for his crimes, also followed by 36 months of supervised release.
Taherzadeh got less time since he cooperated with the investigation, so he'll serve about 2 3/4 years, which falls in the lower range of the 30-to-37 months that prosecutors had sought.
Defense attorneys, on the other hand, sought a term of 18 months in exchange for Taherzadeh's guilty plea, adding that the defendant "deeply regrets the harm he caused to the reputations and careers of these officers."
Prosecutors alleged Taherzadeh gave gifts worth $90,000 to Secret Service agents in an attempt to maintain his persona as a Homeland Security agent.
The episode led to a major embarrassment for the White House as one of the agents placed on leave had been detailed to first lady Jill Biden.
To pull off the ruse, Taherzadeh claimed to be a member of a federal task force, a former U.S. Air Marshal, and a former U.S. Army Ranger, while fooling the owners of three apartment complexes that supplied upscale accommodations and parking for his bogus law enforcement activities.
