The oddities from the Sunshine State continue as a federal prosecutor indicted a Pensacola man on Monday after his company attempted to sell hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of power generating equipment to the Iranian government.
FloridaPolitics.com reports that the 59-year-old James P. Meharg "conspired with citizens of the United Kingdom and Iran to export a large turbine and parts to an Iranian recipient, in violation of the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations as well as federal criminal law," according to the feds.
Meharg is president and CEO of Turbine Resources International and “conspired from October 1, 2017, to June 12, 2019, to violate embargo by attempting to export a Solar Mars 90 S turbine core engine and parts from the United States, for delivery to an end user in Iran,” according to U.S. Attorney Lawrence Keefe of the Northern District of Florida.
"On April 25, 2018," Keefe says, "Meharg sent an invoice for $500,000 to a conspirator in the United Kingdom and received two partial payments of $124,950 each, on May 7 and May 24, 2018, at least one of which was routed through a company in Dubai."
As reported by the website, "Meharg faces up to 20 years’ imprisonment each for the charges related to violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and money laundering, and he faces up to 5 years’ imprisonment each for the conspiracy and filing false paperwork charges."
"For decades, American presidents have declared the government of Iran to be a threat to our national security and thereby imposed sanctions, and this office is deeply committed to protecting the integrity of the United States in all ways," Keefe said regarding the arrest.
Meharg has pleaded not guilty on all accounts. His trial is scheduled for September 3rd.
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