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NY Man Indicted for Having Rifle outside Home of Iranian Journalist

In this undated photo provided by Masih Alinejad, Monday, Aug. 1, 2022, Alinejad, an Iranian opposition activist and writer in exile in New York City, poses for a picture. (Courtesy of Masih Alinejad via AP)
In this undated photo provided by Masih Alinejad, Monday, Aug. 1, 2022, Alinejad, an Iranian opposition activist and writer in exile in New York City, poses for a picture. (Courtesy of Masih Alinejad via AP)
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NY Man Indicted for Having Rifle outside Home of Iranian Journalist

In this undated photo provided by Masih Alinejad, Monday, Aug. 1, 2022, Alinejad, an Iranian opposition activist and writer in exile in New York City, poses for a picture. (Courtesy of Masih Alinejad via AP)
In this undated photo provided by Masih Alinejad, Monday, Aug. 1, 2022, Alinejad, an Iranian opposition activist and writer in exile in New York City, poses for a picture. (Courtesy of Masih Alinejad via AP)

A New York man has been indicted on charges he possessed a loaded AK-47 rifle outside the home of an Iranian-American journalist and rights activist, court records showed on Friday.

The defendant, Khalid Mehdiyev, spent two days in late July outside the Brooklyn home of journalist Masih Alinejad, and once tried opening the door, an FBI agent wrote in a complaint filed in Manhattan federal court.

A lawyer for Mehdiyev declined to comment.

Alinejad has been a critic of Iran's headcovering laws and has promoted videos of women violating the laws to her millions of social media followers. Last year she was the target of what US prosecutors called a Tehran-backed kidnapping plot.

Mehdiyev was indicted on Thursday for possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number. Prosecutors are also seeking to have Mehdiyev forfeit the gun and the ammunition.

Last year, prosecutors charged four Iranians they alleged to have been intelligence operatives with plotting to kidnap Alinejad.

Tehran has dismissed allegations of government involvement as "baseless."

According to a criminal complaint, after being arrested for running a stop sign, Mehdiyev told investigators that the AK-47 was his and that he was in Brooklyn "looking for someone."

Mehdiyev then asked for a lawyer and stopped answering questions, the complaint said.

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Tropical Storm Sara Kills Four in Honduras and Nicaragua

FILE - This GeoColor satellite image taken, Nov. 3, 2020, and provided by NOAA, shows Hurricane Eta in the Caribbean Sea, arriving at Nicaragua's northern shore. (NOAA via AP, File)
FILE - This GeoColor satellite image taken, Nov. 3, 2020, and provided by NOAA, shows Hurricane Eta in the Caribbean Sea, arriving at Nicaragua's northern shore. (NOAA via AP, File)
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Tropical Storm Sara Kills Four in Honduras and Nicaragua

FILE - This GeoColor satellite image taken, Nov. 3, 2020, and provided by NOAA, shows Hurricane Eta in the Caribbean Sea, arriving at Nicaragua's northern shore. (NOAA via AP, File)
FILE - This GeoColor satellite image taken, Nov. 3, 2020, and provided by NOAA, shows Hurricane Eta in the Caribbean Sea, arriving at Nicaragua's northern shore. (NOAA via AP, File)

Tropical storm Sara left at least four people dead in Honduras and Nicaragua over the weekend, while more than 120,000 were left homeless or suffered damages in floods across Central America, officials said Monday.
Sara weakened to a tropical depression as it passed through Belize on Sunday and was dissipating while moving over the western Yucatan Peninsula, according to the US National Hurricane Center.
One of the dead in hardest-hit Honduras was a three-year-old boy, washed away by a soaring river on Sunday, authorities said.
More than 200 houses in the Central American country were destroyed and some 3,200 damaged, while nearly 1,800 communities were left isolated by flooding, collapsed bridges and destroyed roads.
Farming crops were also severely damaged.
Two deaths were also reported in Nicaragua, with some 1,800 homes flooded and about 5,000 people affected, authorities said.
In Costa Rica, where at least six people died in flooding two weeks earlier, officials reported more than 50 landslides, and some 5,000 people needing emergency assistance.
Storm damage from Sara in Guatemala and El Salvador was not as severe.