WASHINGTON — In a blow to prosecutors, a federal magistrate judge on Tuesday ordered the two accused DC police impostors released pending trial.
But minutes later, Judge G. Michael Harvey stayed the release of Arian Taherzadeh and Haider Ali until Wednesday to give prosecutors until 9 a.m. to decide whether to appeal.
The two are accused of trying to infiltrate the U.S. Secret Service, lavishing four members who serve at the White House and the Vice President's mansion with thousands of dollars worth of free rent, iPhones, and flat-screen TVs.
The judge said he didn't think there was enough evidence of dangerousness or flight risk to hold the men pending trial -- but he did think there was a lot of evidence to convict them of impersonating a federal officer.
He planned to release them to their fathers under high-intensity supervision and under the condition that they give up their passports and stay away from any witnesses in the case.
Taherzadeh and Ali have been locked up in the D.C. jail since the FBI raid a week ago on their five apartments in a posh rental building in the Navy Yard neighborhood.
An assistant U.S. Attorney said Ali claimed he had ties to ISI, the Pakistani intel agency -- which the Pakistani Embassy called "totally fallacious!"
A video allegedly showed Taherzadeh firing an assault-style rifle while wearing a U.S. Secret Service insignia.
The men allegedly lavished members of the Secret Service with $40,000 a year apartments, iPhones and flat screen TVs.
But the judge suggested if they paid for all that with credit cards and bounced checks, the government's case "doesn't amount to much."
And defense attorneys said prosecutors "have jumped to the wildest conspiracy theories possible over the most scant of evidence."
Taherzadeh ran a business called United States Special Police, and his lawyer says he was licensed as a private detective.
She said he let an "embarrassing misrepresentation" that he was an agent with Homeland Security Investigations spiral "out of control."
The lawyer said holding him on a charge of impersonating, which carries a recommended sentence of zero to six months, would be unfair.
WUSA9 spoke briefly on the phone to Taherzadeh's dad in Sterling. He wished us a very pleasant day and hung up.