Mr. Arbabsiar, 58, was born in Kermanshah and served in the army there. He came to the United States to study mechanical engineering in the late 1970’s on a student visa to what was then Texas A&I University (Kingsville, TX) between 1979 and 1983 but flunked out and he eventually graduated from Southern College in Baton Rouge, La.
By 1987, Arbabsiar had divorced his first wife, Esperanza Walczak, whom he had met at Texas A&I. Public records show that in the course of the divorce proceedings, she filed a protective order against him. Tom Hosseini, a store owner in Corpus Christi who has known Arbabsiar since the late 1970’s said that Arbabsiar has properties in Iran worth about $2 million that provided him with a steady income. He also has a brother and sister in Iran. Arbabsiar’s nickname was “Lazy Jack” because of his taste for Jack Daniel’s whiskey! He also smoked marijuana.
In 1983, a group of men apparently angry at Mr. Arbabsiar for flirting with their girlfriends attacked and stabbed him repeatedly that nearly killed him in a dark street in Houston. That left a scar on his face and scars on his chest and back. Tom Hosseini who was with Arbabsiar that night said that Arbabsiar was too slow to escape his assailants! Friends and neighbors in Texas said that he could be gruff and intimidating, and that he often stood outside his house at night smoking and talking on his cellphone in a language they did not understand.
In 1991, Arbabsiar married Marta Guerrero, and they have a college-age son. Arbabsiar failed at a succession of ventures from used cars to kebabs. Arbabsiar opened his first business, B&M Autosales, in Corpus Christi in 1988. He opened another car lot in 1992 and then closed it when he incorporated Johnny’s Loan Co. in 1996. He started another financial venture called Tat Finance Co., and in April 2000, he tried the restaurant business when he founded Gyros and Kabob. The restaurant closed in 2003. In 2010 after he was separated from Marta, their home in Corpus Christi went into foreclosure and was auctioned off.
He became a US citizen/passport holder in 2010 and traveled to Iran 4 times that year. He later talked about his cousin who was a high ranking member of Sepah’s Qods Force (Brigadier General Mohammad Shahlaei). It is believed that after the crackdown by the Saudi forces in Bahrain in March of 2011, and to avenge the victims, the plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador, Adel al-Jubeir was hatched. He was assigned Sepah Colonel Ali Gholam Shakuri as his contact and handler.
The plan, according to government officials involved Mr. Arbabsiar’s paying a member of the Los Zetas drug cartel $1.5 million to plant a bomb at a Washington restaurant (Café Milano in Georgetown) while the Saudi ambassador dined. The person turned out to be a government informant whom Arbabsiar met in Mexico City on May 24, 2011.
Shakuri wired approximately $100,000 (2 payments of $49,000 on Aug. 1st and 9th, 2011) to a bank account in the U.S. as a down payment which went to an FBI undercover account. Arbabsiar was arrested on Sept. 29, 2011, at John F. Kennedy International Airport after he flew from Iran to Mexico City, but was refused entry and sent to NY. Arbabsiar had offered himself as collateral to the Mexican “conspirators” so that after the successful hit on the Saudi ambassador the balance of the $1.5 million “contract” is paid in Mexico. After his arrest, he initially cooperated with the authorities who were trying to lure the co-conspirators to outside Iran so that they could be apprehended. But he then stopped cooperating.
Mr. Arbabsiar, addressing the judge before he was sentenced, said: “Whatever I did wrong, I take responsibility for it. I can’t change what I did. I have a good heart. I never hurt anyone.” He added, “My mind sometimes is not in a good place.”
The judge gave him the maximum sentence of 25 years partly because of his limited cooperation with the government.
He has a "good heart", he is just misunderstood. He meant to spend the wired money on humanitarian plans the Islamist Rapists, “reformers” and all are so famous for.
Remember all the IRI appologists and NIAC types saying this was a CIA/American Conspiracy?
Better yet AI - I have an Iranian friend here who actually went one step further. He kept saying that this whole thing was a CIA /Israeli / MI6 / etc. conspiracy. When I reminded him that this guy, Shakuri was on tape giving Arbabsiar instructions, he doubled down on the whole thing and said that Shakuri himself was an Ameican agent. That's right: he claimed that an active IRGC commander is an American agent! I wonder what they would do to him (my firend) if he ever such a thing that in Iran? :-)
Dear AO: The fact that the IRI is denouncing the sentencing of this terrorist shows that this guy is not just a duped simpelton...He was probably a major "asset".
I can't imagine what would have happened to the Iranian-American community if this guy was able to go fulfill his murderous mission??
Why would such a terrorist entity bent on killing Americans on their soil should have a "right" to nuclear technology or weapons?? The IAEA should stop helping the IRI and kick them out of their organization. Imagine if Al-Qaeda announced that they have an inalienable right to nuclear technology?? I see no difference.
I have seen PhD Iranians with propensity to support or justify physically harmful actions against US and Israeli/Jewish citizens, much less a failed dreg like this guy and his ilk. This should clearly denote the lingering effects of the 1979 anti-democratic cataclysm. Or maybe his case is as Al Bundy said: "he was abused as a kid"....
I would not have researched and written about this guy if it wasn't for the fact the there are others like him out there.
We, as the Iranian students in the US made a grave mistake during the American Hostage Crisis in the early 80's by not coming out strongly to condemn the barbaric acts of the Regime. We were confused and we confused the American people and lived to pay a price for it. But then again, we were young, we did not have a community and the people that claimed to represent us were a bunch of no good Commies and Confederation of Iranian Students types (the Iranian Taliban).
We are a lot smarter and much better organized now.
Let's doubt that! How come we are not out there now to comdemn this clear act ot terror, which is the first one in its kind? This is the first Iranian that has acted on behalf of the regime, threatening the lives of other than Iranian dissidents. And we are still not getting it!! Iranians needed to be out on the streets in droves to express their hatred of that government and to show America how much they care about being citizens here....Yet another opportunity lost...
Where is NIAC and Where is RP??
NIAC is probably gathering petition for this "unjustly treaded Iranian" in the land of giants. He is so cute...
Brother Faramarz.
I have been telling tem: stick to selling kababs, and second hand volvos and stay away from Ali Khamenei and his nezaam unless you want to risk becoming some jailed gang leaders sigheh wife for 25 years. But do they listen? No! they flag me and block me, and then this happens to them!
Brother Seyed Javad Tabatabaei,
In the good old days the Iranian brothers used to work at 7-Eleven and pump gas at Texaco and Conoco, and on the weekends they used to put a mask on to protest and chant, "Down with the Shah!"
Everybody got along then and no one got hurt! But now we have this!
So IRI employed this failure to arrange the terror of the Saudi ambassador. The guy had failed every business, college and marriage and could not even run a Kebab shop and still IRI somehow delegated the task to him because of his relations. That's what you get when there is no meritocracy.
Maybe he does not need to serve 25 years! IRI can force US to commute this guy's sentence, so IRI will let go the US marine, Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, accused of spying for CIA! The hostage trade never ends!
I agree with Faramarz's key point that we , as Iranian-americans should come out and openly distance ourselves from this miserable criminal and any other iranian person/group who believs that a US passport would give him/her the mandate to engage in anti american propaganda or terrorist activity , on behalf of Iranians.
How about Mr.Shakuri and Sepah commander Mohammad Shahlai? Those were main figures in this conspiricy. Those have to be charged under "attempted murder".
By international law, those monsters should be indited to U.S for trial.