Adventures with the Freedom of Information Act

Jed Margolin

April 2024

Zandian is an Iranian national who says he was born in Isfahan, Iran, on January 15, 1952.

At some point he moved to France where he set up several companies such as Computer World Europe.

Later, he moved to the United States (Southern California) where he set up several U.S. companies such as Lucach Corporation.

In 1993 Zandian and his partner Charles Reger were arrested at LAX trying to illegally export a high-performance IBM computer through France to Iran, and the computer was confiscated. See Exhibit 1 - Story in LA Times January 5, 1993. The computer would have been used in Iran’s nuclear and missile programs.

Zandian and Reger, were put on trial in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California in Case #: 2:93-cr-00055-ER-1. See Exhibit 2 - Criminal Case in U.S. District Court for California Case History.

Somehow Zandian was found not guilty. That was a red flag for me because the Federal agents who arrested him had him dead-to-rights. That suggested to me that Zandian had made a deal to provide intel to one of the U.S. intelligence agencies in return for getting the case dismissed.

Even though Zandian had beat the rap he and his U.S. companies were banned from exporting equipment from the U.S. for 10 years. See Exhibit 3 from the Federal Register for Monday July 31, 1995.

Not only that, the IBM computer was not returned. The money for the computer had come from Bank Melli of Iran which is owned and operated by the Government of Iran. Iran did not get its computer and did not get its money back. This was the reason for the bankruptcy of Zandian’s French company, Computer World, and led to Canet’s fraudulent Chapter 15 Petition in USBC 18 years later.

Charles Reger was dismissed from the case because he supposedly died. Really, was it from medical problems, suicide, murder, or did he go into WITSEC? That was another red flag.

In December 2007 Zandian stole several of my Patents by fraudulently filing documents with the U.S. Patent Office. Two of the Patents are aerospace Patents which many consider the pioneering patents for the use of synthetic vision for both manned and unmanned aircraft.

In November 2009 I discovered that although Zandian lived in Southern California he owned a bunch of property in Nevada, so in December 2009 I sued in the First Judicial District Court of Nevada (The Carson City Court). 

In November 2010 I found a curious entry in my server logs. Someone was doing a Google search for “jed margolin” and zandian.

153.31.113.21   153.31.113.21 - - [23/Nov/2010:17:10:51 -0800] "GET /nasa/refs/doc050-1.pdf HTTP/1.1" 200 2491507 "http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CCAQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jmargolin.com%2Fnasa%2Frefs%2Fdoc050-1.pdf&rct=j&q=jed%20margolin%20zandian&ei=82XsTNzZE4T6lwfsn5mOAQ&usg=AFQjCNE8yHUnn9La5hXW8yifuTtjR4tIqQ" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1; Trident/4.0; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.648; .NET CLR 3.5.21022; InfoPath.2; .NET CLR 3.0.4506.2152; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; MS-RTC LM 8; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)"

The IP address had not resolved to a domain name so I looked it up.

IP Address           Country           Region            City     Latitude/Longitude     ZIP Code      Time Zone       

153.31.113.21      UNITED STATES      WEST VIRGINIA       BRIDGEPORT      39.286479  -80.256198           26330 -05:00

Net Speed            ISP      Domain

DSL         FBI CRIMINAL JUSTICE INFORMATION SYSTEMS       LEO.GOV

Wow

I looked up their phone number and called them. I told them who I was, about the entry in my server log, and asked them why they were investigating me. They said they weren’t, that all they do at their facility is match fingerprints.

I called the Las Vegas office of the FBI but it went straight to voice mail. I don’t like leaving voicemail so I didn’t.

Then I called FBI Headquarters in Washington, DC. I got switched around several times and ended up with a young man. I told him who I was, about the entry in my server log, and asked him why the FBI was investigating me. He thought it was funny. The more we talked the funnier he thought it was. I didn’t think it was funny. Finally I got so pissed off that I ended the call with prejudice.

Twenty (20) minutes later I got a call from Cassandra Joseph (my attorney at Watson Rounds) who said she had just gotten a call from the FBI Office in Las Vegas. They wanted to send two FBI Special Agents up here to talk to me. Was I willing to talk to them? I said yes, and we all met in the Watson Rounds conference room on December 15, 2010. The FBI Special Agents were David Linterman and Sean Jolley. See Exhibit 4. I think Special Agent Jolly said he was in the process of transferring to Las Vegas. In any event, Special Agent Linterman was the senior agent.

All they wanted to know was if Zandian had information on the technology in my patents that he could sell to foreign countries. (The patents he meant were 5,566,073 and 5,904,724 which are for the use of synthetic vision in manned and unmanned aircraft. They were two of the patents that Zandian stole.)

They didn’t care that he had committed a felony in stealing the Patents. That was another red flag.

Long afterwards I realized something. This happened before I started blogging the case. There was nothing on my Web site linking Cassandra to me. The First Judicial District Court of Nevada did not (and still does not) post any information about cases. Not documents, not even the case histories.

How did the FBI know that Cassandra was my attorney? A very red flag.

I filed a number of Freedom of Information Act requests and got nowhere, especially with CIA.

I got a little further with DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency). I called the number in their rejection letter and talked to their FOIA officer. I told him about Zandian and said that I was confident that Zandian has never produced useful intel. He would blame everyone else and then say that he was working on something big and needed just a few more months. After several cycles of this the agency would be using him only to send disinformation to the Islamic Republic of Iran and to train newbie case officers. DIA sent my FOIA Request to DSS (Defense Security Service). They said they had a responsive document but were withholding it on grounds of National Security. See Exhibit 5. That confirmed the numerous red flags that I had seen.

And then, at the beginning of June in 2022, I received a letter from NCIS (Naval Criminal Investigative Service). This is the real NCIS, not the TV show. NCIS is more than just “Navy Cops.” Their broad mandate includes national security, counterintelligence, counterterrorism, cyberwarfare, and the protection of U.S. naval assets worldwide. NCIS is the successor organization to the former Naval Investigative Service (NIS), which was established by the Office of Naval Intelligence after the Second World War. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Criminal_Investigative_Service Also see https://www.ncis.navy.mil/About-NCIS/

They said DIA had sent them my 2018 FOIA request. They had two responsive documents. They were withholding one but sending me the other. They sent me four pages of a 28 page report. It is heavily redacted but still has some interesting information.  See Exhibit 6.

1.  It says about the source: “Who Has Extensive Business Associates and Business Interests Abroad Whose Reliability Is Unknown” and  “A Source of Unproven Reliability”. That certainly describes Zandian.

2.  But get this. The countries involved are: United States, Iran, Russia, Pakistan, and North Korea. Iran, Russia, and North Korea are avowed enemies of the United States. Pakistan is a U.S. ally. Pakistan, Russia, and North Korea are nuclear powers. Iran wants to be one.

3. The report went to a number of U.S. intelligence stations around the world.

I always thought Zandian was just a minor Iranian terrorist. Now it looks like he is an international terrorist.

Here is an interesting coincidence. Zandian says he was born in Isfahan which has played an important part in the history of the several Persian empires starting in the Bronze Age with the Elamite civilization (2700–1600 BCE). Now it is known primarily as the location of Iran’s main nuclear facility, where they are refining uranium to make weapons grade material. Was Zandian really born there or is he making a little joke?

In June 2023 I received a letter from DIA denying my appeal of their response to my earlier FOIA request. Although it was a denial of my appeal I think it is a nice letter anyway. See Exhibit 7.

I mentioned filing a FOIA Request with CIA. I filed more than one. The following is typical of their responses:

In accordance with Section 3.6(a) of Executive Order 13526, the CIA can neither confirm nor deny the existence or nonexistence of records responsive to your request. The fact of the existence or nonexistence of such records is itself currently and properly classified and is intelligence sources and methods information protected from disclosure by Section 6 of the CIA Act of 1949, as amended, and Section 102A(i)(1) of the National Security Act of 1947, as amended.

They might be right but there is a warrant out for Zandian’s arrest issued by the First Judicial District Court of Nevada (The Carson City Court). They should at least surrender him to the Carson City Sheriff.

After all, I designed a nice tee-shirt for them to wear to their annual Summer picnic (and baseball game) with FBI:

(The picnic is a secret. Don’t tell anyone.)

.end