NEW YORK — Federal prosecutors are asking a New York judge to show leniency toward a Turkish-Iranian gold trader set to be sentenced next week after he admitted to helping Iranians and their government dodge U.S. sanctions — and then turned around to become a key government witness in a major corruption case.
In a sentencing memorandum filed Monday, prosecutors told a federal judge in New York that international gold trader Reza Zarrab delivered meaningful assistance to the United States. That help included revealing that he had paid millions of dollars in bribes to Turkish government and banking officials, and taking the witness stand during a December 2017 trial.
Zarrab’s testimony was central to the conviction of Turkish banker Mehmet Hakan Atilla, who received a prison sentence of more than two years. Following that verdict, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan publicly called the outcome “scandalous.”
Prosecutors described Zarrab’s October 2017 guilty plea — on charges of conspiracy, bank fraud, and money laundering — as the beginning of cooperation they characterized as “truthful, complete and reliable,” as well as significant, useful, and timely. They also acknowledged that his decision to cooperate exposed him to serious personal danger.
While testifying for a week at the 2017 trial, Zarrab recounted being attacked inside prison by a fellow inmate armed with a knife, who claimed he had been instructed to kill Zarrab because of his cooperation with U.S. authorities.
Monday’s filing from prosecutors referenced that threat directly. According to the memorandum, the inmate at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn told Zarrab he would be killed for cooperating against “big people in Turkey.” The incident led to Zarrab being removed from the prison facility and placed into FBI custody.
Prosecutors also noted that the Turkish government moved to freeze and seize Zarrab’s assets after he began working with U.S. authorities.
The years-long gap between Zarrab’s guilty plea and his upcoming sentencing is not unusual in complex federal cases where a cooperating witness may be needed for multiple trials down the road.
Last month, a Manhattan judge approved the dismissal of a separate criminal case the U.S. government had filed against Halkbank, a Turkish state-owned bank. That move to drop the charges came during a period of improved relations between Erdogan and President Donald Trump.
Following a meeting between the two leaders at the NATO summit in The Hague last year, Erdogan told reporters that Trump is quick to return his calls — a detail widely seen as a sign of their close relationship.
“With my friend Trump, we are opening the door to a new era in Turkish-American relations,” said Erdogan, who has led Turkey for 13 years.
