Free Republic

Mozaffar Khazaee, a dual U.S.-Iranian citizen who worked for defense contractor Pratt & Whitney, was arrested last week for allegedly trying to smuggle boxes of documents related to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the plane expected to be the Pentagon’s next generation fighter jet. He was picked up in New Jersey on his way to Iran.

Pratt & Whitney said Monday it is cooperating with authorities after federal agents arrested a former employee for trying to ship documents to Iran related to the U.S. military's Joint Strike Fighter aircraft. The East Hartford defense contractor, the sole manufacturer of the aircraft's engine, declined to comment on how Mozaffar Khazaee, 59, slipped thousands of pages of documents, diagrams, blueprints and technical manuals out the door before he was laid off in August along with hundreds of other employees. Federal authorities arrested Khazaee at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey on Thursday before he could board a plane...

A former engineer for a U.S. defense contractor has been arrested and accused of trying to ship thousands of pages of documents, blueprints, technical manuals, and diagrams of military aircraft engines to Iran. The U.S. Attorney's office for Connecticut said Mozaffar Khazaee, 59, was arrested at Newark Liberty International Airport Thursday after arriving from Indianapolis and before attempting to board a flight to Frankfurt, Germany en route to Tehran. He is charged with transporting, transmitting and transferring in interstate or foreign commerce goods obtained by theft, conversion or fraud, and faces as long as 10 years in prison and a...

An engineer for a major American defense contractor tried to smuggle thousands of secret documents, including blueprints, on America's multi-billion-dollar F-35 stealth fighter to Iran in boxes labeled as "household goods," U.S. prosecutors say. Mozaffar Khazaee, a dual U.S.-Iranian citizen, was reportedly arrested late last week as he was attempting to travel to Germany and then on to Iran. Weeks earlier, Khazaee had arranged for a shipping company to take boxes containing "sensitive technical manuals, specification sheets, and other proprietary material" related to the F-35 and its engines to a contact in Iran, according to an affidavit filed by a...