Proceeds From Tehran-Owned Fifth Avenue Tower To Go to Victims of Iranian Terror

Victims of Iranian-sponsored terrorism are set to receive hundreds of millions of dollars from the sale of a Manhattan skyscraper that the Islamic regime secretly leased for decades to fill its own coffers.The $318 million settlement, announced this week by the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Jay Clayton, closes a 17-year legal battle over a 36-story commercial and office tower at 650 Fifth Avenue. The proceeds will be directed toward victims of Iranian terrorism around the world, from the September 11 attacks to suicide bombings across Israel in the 1980s and 1990s.“Since the inception of this litigation, the overriding goal of the Department of Justice has been to vindicate the rights of victims of the Government of Iran’s long-standing policy of supporting and promoting terror attacks across the world, including 9/11,” Mr. Clayton said. “For nearly two decades, we pursued hidden Iranian government assets tied to a Manhattan skyscraper to ensure those funds would ultimately compensate victims of Iran-sponsored terrorism rather than terrorists and their enablers.”The building was originally controlled by a charitable foundation set up by the former Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, before the Islamic regime seized it after the Iranian revolution in 1979. Tehran concealed its ownership through a web of shell companies, using them to funnel tens of millions of dollars in rent from tenants including Juicy Couture and Godiva Chocolatier to a Tehran-owned bank sanctioned by the American government in 1995, Bank Melli Iran. The Southern District first filed a forfeiture complaint against Bank Melli Iran’s interest in the building in 2008. The government took full control of the tower in 2017 after a federal jury found it was owned by Iranian front companies.As part of the settlement, the ownership of the skyscraper will be transferred to a new entity and monitored by American officials. An Israeli attorney who represented the victims, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, said the verdict brought justice “finally within reach.” She drew a parallel between the lawsuit and the ongoing military campaign against the Islamic regime.“While the armed forces of the United States and Israel strike at the infrastructure of the terror regime in Tehran, the victims have been fighting on another critical front: seizing the regime’s assets through the courts,” Ms. Darshan-Leitner told the Jerusalem Post. “This case is a powerful example of that effort”Ms. Darshan-Leitner also urged other countries “to follow this model: to strip Iran of its immunity and allow terror victims to enforce their judgments against the regime’s assets worldwide. This is how we can weaken Iran without conquering Tehran.”

Proceeds From Tehran-Owned Fifth Avenue Tower To Go to Victims of Iranian Terror

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