BREAKING NEWS

Man who sent details on US fighter jets to Iran sentenced to 8 years

A dual US-Iranian citizen who pleaded guilty to exporting sensitive information about US military jets to his native Iran was sentenced to eight years and one month in federal prison at a hearing on Friday.
Mozaffar Khazaee, who had worked as an engineer at US defense contractor Pratt & Whitney, was arrested in January 2014 as he tried to leave the country with sensitive material about the engines for the US Air Force's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and F-22 Raptor aircraft in his luggage.
Khazaee had also exchanged e-mails containing information about the programs with Iranian contacts.
US District Judge Vanessa Bryant sentenced Khazaee to three years of supervised release after his prison sentence ends. The sentence was less than the 10 years prosecutors had sought.
While he pleaded guilty to the charges, Khazaee maintained in court papers that he sent information on the jets as part of a presentation he had prepared while seeking a job with an Iranian university after being laid off by his previous employer, a unit of diversified manufacturer United Technologies Corp., in 2013.