Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Arizona Daily Star (Tucson)
May 19, 2007
By Associated Press
PHOENIX — A former engineer at the nation's largest nuclear power plant who's accused of taking software back to his native Iran claims he was only trying to show off for his family and friends.
Mohammad Alavi, 49, also told FBI agents that he moved to Iran to be closer to his family and was about to start a job with an electric-motor company there.
He also said the laptop computer containing the software is still in a closet at his mother's house in Tehran, according to records obtained by The Arizona Republic.
Alavi, an Iranian native who lived in the United States as a naturalized citizen for 30 years, is being held without bail in Arizona.
He has been charged with a single count of violating a trade embargo with Iran. If convicted, he would face 18 to 21 months in prison. Trial is set for July 3.
Alavi worked at the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station west of Phoenix for 16 years until August, when he resigned and moved to Tehran.
He was arrested on April 8 as he stepped off a plane in Los Angeles. He had returned to the United States with his wife for the birth of their first child.
Alavi's attorney said his client wasn't the only Palo Verde employee to download the details of control rooms, reactors and designs as part of a software training package onto a personal laptop and take it home. Palo Verde officials confirm that employees were encouraged to download the software and work on it at home.
APS did not know Alavi had left the country with the information until the Maryland software manufacturer reported attempts had been made to access the Palo Verde training system from an address in Tehran.
May 19, 2007
By Associated Press
PHOENIX — A former engineer at the nation's largest nuclear power plant who's accused of taking software back to his native Iran claims he was only trying to show off for his family and friends.
Mohammad Alavi, 49, also told FBI agents that he moved to Iran to be closer to his family and was about to start a job with an electric-motor company there.
He also said the laptop computer containing the software is still in a closet at his mother's house in Tehran, according to records obtained by The Arizona Republic.
Alavi, an Iranian native who lived in the United States as a naturalized citizen for 30 years, is being held without bail in Arizona.
He has been charged with a single count of violating a trade embargo with Iran. If convicted, he would face 18 to 21 months in prison. Trial is set for July 3.
Alavi worked at the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station west of Phoenix for 16 years until August, when he resigned and moved to Tehran.
He was arrested on April 8 as he stepped off a plane in Los Angeles. He had returned to the United States with his wife for the birth of their first child.
Alavi's attorney said his client wasn't the only Palo Verde employee to download the details of control rooms, reactors and designs as part of a software training package onto a personal laptop and take it home. Palo Verde officials confirm that employees were encouraged to download the software and work on it at home.
APS did not know Alavi had left the country with the information until the Maryland software manufacturer reported attempts had been made to access the Palo Verde training system from an address in Tehran.