Feds charge a Natick man, and an Iranian man, in connection to fatal drone strike abroad

Federal officials announced charges on Monday against two men for violating U.S. export laws to supply Iran with materials for a drone strike that killed American service members in Jordan earlier this year.

U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Joshua Levy detailed charges against Mahdi Mohammad Sadeghi, a naturalized U.S. citizen living in Natick, and and Mohammad Abedininajafabadi, a Iranian citizen who was arrested in Milan, Italy.

Levy said that since 2016, the two conspired to violate American export laws by giving sensitive American technologies to Iran. Sadeghi works for a U.S. semiconductor company based in Massachusetts. Abedininajafabadi is chief executive of a Tehran-based company with ties to the Iranian military, government and the IRGC, which the U.S. considers a terrorist organization.

Both are charged with conspiring to violate U.S. export laws; Abedininajafabadi was also charged with conspiracy to provide material support to a terrorist organization.

Federal officials are seeking to extradite Abedininajafabadi from Italy to face charges in the U.S.

"As alleged in this criminal complaint, the grave potential damage from the leak of American technology overseas came to fruition," Levy said at the Moakley Federal Courthouse in Boston Monday evening.

Abedininajafabadi's company allegedly manufactured the navigation system used in the drone attack.

Sadeghi was an employee at Analog Devices Inc. (ADI) in Wilmington since 2020, according to a LinkedIn profile with his name.

An Analog spokesperson confirmed Sadeghi's employment was terminated on Dec. 16, 2024. "The individual no longer has access to our buildings or systems," the spokesperson said in an email.

When asked about the allegations, the company issued a statement to WBUR:

“ADI takes its compliance obligations and role in national security very seriously,” stated Ferda Millan, of its external communications. “We have cooperated fully with federal law enforcement and will continue to do so throughout the proceedings. ADI is committed to preventing unauthorized access to and misuse of our products and technology.”

According to ADI’s website, Sadeghi received his doctorate in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 2014. His thesis involved unmanned air vehicles.

The LinkedIn profile shows a Sadeghi with the title of technology group product marketing manager, who focuses on the design, fabrication and validation of micro electronic mechanical systems.

The drone attack in northeastern Jordan on the military outpost known as Tower 22 in January 2024 killed three U.S. soldiers and injured more than 47 service members.

U.S. officials blamed the attack on the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iran-backed militias that includes Kataib Hezbollah.

Three soldiers from Georgia — Sgt. William Jerome Rivers of Carrollton, Sgt. Breonna Moffett of Savannah and Sgt. Kennedy Sanders of Waycross — were killed in attack.

The one-way attack drone may have been mistaken for a U.S. drone that was expected to return back to the logistics base about the same time and was not shot down. Instead, it crashed into living quarters, killing the three soldiers and injuring more than 40.

Tower 22 held about 350 U.S. military personnel at the time. It is strategically located between Jordan and Syria, only 6 miles from the Iraqi border, and in the months just after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, and Israel’s blistering response in Gaza, Iranian-backed militias intensified their attacks on U.S. military locations in the region.

Following the attack, the U.S. launched a huge counterstrike against 85 sites in Iraq and Syria used by Iran's Revolutionary Guard and Iranian-backed militia and bolstered Tower 22’s defenses.

With reporting by WBUR's Amy Gorel and Christine Willmsen, and The Associated Press

Editor's note: a previous version of this story used a shortened version of Abedininajafabadi's name listed by the Department of Justice.