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| MSM Cameraman Pleads Guilty to Trying to Sell Iran Restricted Camera Lenses |
| 2005-02-09 |
| Conviction in bid to ship stolen camera equipment to Iran BY ERIK HOLM STAFF WRITER February 8, 2005 A part-time cameraman who worked for NBC found out the hard way that "Akbar," the international broker he had met on eBay, wasn't really looking to ship stolen night-vision lenses to Iran. Instead, the broker was a federal customs agent, and the cameraman, Erik Kyriacou, 24, of North Babylon, found himself in a Philadelphia courtroom Monday pleading guilty to four federal counts, including trying to export technology to an "axis of evil" country. That old pseudonym "Akhbar" gets 'em every time {Snicker} He faces up to 35 years in prison and a $1 million fine, though his attorney, Robert Welsh of Philadelphia, said Monday he expected Kyriacou to receive a far less severe sentence. He said the customs agent had lured Kyriacou into the idea of selling the lenses to Iran, and that "given the fact that, though this was not enough to constitute entrapment, it was very close." Entrapment? He put the things on EBay - They were stolen. MSM idiot cameraman should be shipped to Gitmo to be up close & personal with some more "Akhbars". This would be a good lesson. Kyriacou was arrested last April after offering four Astroscope night-vision lenses for sale in a public auction on eBay, then privately negotiating an $8,000 sale price with the undercover agent, court records show. He shipped them to an address in Vienna, Austria, in January 2004, according to the court papers. Aaah yes Vienna...Crossroads of many "Akhbars" He had stolen them from NBC, where he worked as a news camerman, Welsh said. STOLEN! Where is the Grand Theft charge? The federal customs agent posing as broker told Kyriacou before he sold the lenses that they would be headed to Iran, and that there was no license to ship them there, the court documents say. No license? If this had been for real those lenses could have been used against any possible action we might take. Send the twerp to Gitmo. A spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Monday that there had been "a large number of cases over the years" of representatives from Iran being caught trying to buy forbidden technologies, especially spare airplane parts. "Their entire air force was manufactured in the United States before their revolution, and they need spare parts to keep it airborne," said the spokesman, Dean Boyd. Are rubber bands an embargoed item to Iran? I hear they help keep airplanes flying... It was an employee at Electrophysics, the Fairfield, N.J.-based company that manufactures the Astroscope lens, who first noticed that they were for sale on eBay, the public Internet auction site. GOOD. SHARP EYE! Because it is illegal to ship the high-tech lenses anywhere outside the United States, a representative of Electrophysics contacted the U.S. Department of Commerce, which began an investigation before passing it on to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security. Kyriacou pleaded guilty to two counts of violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, one count in interstate transportation of stolen property and one count of making a false statement. He is scheduled to be sentenced May 10. As I said : Get 'em to fall for the "Akhbar" pseudonym. Works everytime. MSM cameramen probably not all that bright. Maybe he'll be like the guy in the GEICO insurance ad. Fights with the meter maid, then gets sentenced to prison to meet a guy named, "WALLY" Copyright © 2005, Newsday, Inc. |
| Posted by:BigEd |