Arian Taherzadeh, who was accused of posing as federal law enforcement and cozying up to U.S. Secret Service agents inside luxury high-rises in Washington, D.C., pleaded guilty Monday to a federal conspiracy charge. Taherzadeh, 40, also pleaded guilty to voyeurism and unlawful possession of a large-capacity ammunition feeding device in a scheme that unfolded between December 2018 and April 2022, the Washington Post reports. The voyeurism charge was connected to security cameras that Taherzadeh admitted to using to covertly record women.
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said Taherzadeh orchestrated the scheme to ingratiate himself with “federal law enforcement and the defense community” as well as “defraud apartment complexes” into granting him leases he could not afford. On Monday, Taherzadeh admitted for the first time to the ruse. He said he had created an entity called the United States Special Police to represent himself as a federal official even though the company was not associated with the U.S. government. He acknowledged that he had lavished gifts onto real members of the U.S. Secret Service, including a rent-free penthouse apartment and a gun locker — in order to “deepen [his] relationships with them.” It was still unclear to what end Taherzadeh pursued friendships with law enforcement, including officials assigned to protect the White House and first lady Jill Biden.
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