Lawyer seeks bail for management consultant, saying he would face danger if he flees to Iran

Lawyer: Client faces danger if he flees to Iran

NEW YORK — A management consultant charged with violating the Iran Trade Embargo is no risk to flee to Iran because it would be dangerous for him to do so, his lawyer told a judge Friday as he argued for him to be freed on bail.

Attorney Marc Greenwald urged U.S. District Judge John Keenan to free Mahmoud Reza Banki on $300,000 bail as he awaits trial on charges that he operated an unlicensed money exchange business that enabled money to be received from and sent to Iran despite the embargo.

Banki, 33, of Manhattan, has been held without bail since he was arrested last week.

The Iran Trade Embargo, initiated in 1995, prohibits U.S. citizens from supplying goods, services or technology to Iran or the government of Iran. Banki was charged with violating the embargo, operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business and conspiracy to do both.

Greenwald said the Banki family’s conflicts with the current regime in Iran have already caused an uncle of Banki who formerly served as Iran’s minister of energy to be exiled to Canada.

He said Banki’s grandfather, an ayatollah, publicly broke with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of the 1979 Islamic revolution, shortly after the revolution. And he said Banki, a U.S. citizen, recently voted from the United States for an opposition candidate in the Iranian elections.

“It would be dangerous for him to flee to Iran,” Greenwald said of his client.

Greenwald said Banki never operated a money exchange business but rather received money from family members who became worried as a result of instability in their country that money might be in jeopardy there.

Assistant U.S. Attorney E. Danya Perry, though, told Keenan that the Banki family has close ties to the Iranian government because it runs a power generating company that provides power to Iranian cities. She said the company receives money from the government.

Greenwald, though, said the Iranian government is trying to take the business away from the Banki family.

Greenwald also insisted there were no “national security issues” in the case and that a pamphlet from a company that generates fake identifications was found in Banki’s home because he had gotten it when he was under the legal drinking age at Purdue University in 1994.

Banki eventually transferred to the University of California, Berkeley and Princeton University, where he earned a doctorate in chemical engineering. Until recently, Banki worked for McKinsey & Co., a management consulting firm.

The judge noted the disparity between what prosecutors and Greenwald were saying and said he’ll decide the issue next week after he views factual material submitted to back up each side’s claims.

“This is getting like a ping-pong match,” he said.