In Manhattan federal court on Wednesday, Judge Lewis J. Liman imposed the maximum 15-year prison term on Carlisle Rivera after hearing evidence that Rivera carried out steps prosecutors said were aimed at assassinating Masih Alinejad, an Iranian American journalist and human rights advocate, in Brooklyn during 2024. Liman delivered the sentence after describing Rivera’s conduct in court as having inflicted serious harm on Alinejad and her husband, while prosecutors argued the plot was tied to Tehran.
Liman said Rivera’s written conversations as he plotted to kill Alinejad were “chilling,” and he told the court that the conduct caused “great harm” to Alinejad and her husband. Prosecutors also described how the case involved surveillance and other steps connected to planned public activity by Alinejad, including an appearance in Connecticut that prosecutors said was part of the planning but was later canceled.
Alinejad and her husband used their court statements to describe what the assassination plots meant for their family life. They told the judge that repeated threats and the need to avoid targeting forced them to limit interactions with their children and frequently change residences, according to the account presented in court. The judge then imposed the sentence after those statements and other evidence were placed before him.
Addressing the court, Alinejad said she was a target because of her public voice, telling the judge: “I’m just a woman. My weapon is my voice. My weapon is my social media.” She urged Liman to give Rivera the maximum sentence to send a message to anyone “targeting U.S. citizens on U.S. soil” and to “protect unarmed people like me now facing massacre in my country.” Her remarks tied the personal threat she said she faced to broader worries about safety for Americans abroad and at home.
Outside the courthouse in Manhattan, Alinejad warned that the United States should be careful about allowing indiscriminate killings occurring in Iran to spread to the U.S. As she spoke to reporters, she held up a tablet showing video clips she described as body bags of some of the thousands of Iranians killed during recent protests.
Rivera, 51, told the judge shortly before the sentence was announced: “I’m deeply sorry for my actions.” During the proceeding, prosecutors described how Rivera was supposed to surveil Alinejad’s planned February 2024 appearance at Fairfield University in Connecticut, and then, after the event was canceled, prosecutors said he continued efforts to surveil her at a Brooklyn home where she no longer lived, according to court papers.
Alinejad also discussed how she came to the U.S. and her work since leaving Iran in 2009 after the country’s disputed presidential election. She said she later became a U.S. citizen in 2019 and has traveled speaking to women, including through online campaigns that encouraged Iranian women to post images showing their hair in defiance of a headscarf rule. She also referenced her past testimony, saying she testified last year at the trial of two men charged with plotting to kidnap her from her Brooklyn home and kill her in 2022.
Court records described by prosecutors tied Alinejad’s case to a broader pattern of threats officials say are connected to Iran. In the courtroom remarks relayed in the AP report, Alinejad noted that U.S. authorities have said Iran’s Revolutionary Guard was responsible for multiple plots against her life and also a plot prosecutors said targeted President Donald Trump. She also said she hoped Trump would pursue Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and she compared her calls for action to the January U.S. military raid that seized Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro; she added that she did not want Iran bombed, saying she wanted the removal of leaders.
During a break in the proceeding, Alinejad approached Rivera’s fiancée, who sobbed as she hugged Alinejad and said: “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Afterward, Alinejad told reporters that she responded by saying, “I’m fighting for you, I’m fighting for all Americans … when I asked President Trump to try to get the killers.”