Traffic stop in Carson City leads to conviction of Tahoe man for impersonating federal officer
Submitted by Jeff Munson on Sat, 07/13/2024 - 1:50pm
After a three-day trial, a federal jury found a South Lake Tahoe man guilty of four counts of impersonating a federal officer, U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert announced this week.
Anton Andreyevich Iagounov, 38, pretended to be a federal law enforcement agent by creating and sending counterfeit investigative documents, which he signed in the name of a fictional federal agent, seeking highly protected information from the Department of Defense. He was indicted in May of this year.
“The defendant impersonated federal officers and tried multiple times to obtain protected information using fake court documents,” said U.S. Attorney Talbert. “Many federal agencies like NASA have devoted law enforcement officers, and we will continue to partner with those agencies to ensure their officers are not illegally impersonated.”
“Usurping public trust, Mr. Iagounov pretended to be an agent of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Office of Inspector General creating fake investigative documents in an attempt to obtain sensitive government information,” said Michael Graham, NASA-OIG Acting Assistant Inspector General for Investigations.
“This verdict demonstrates the commitment of NASA-OIG, the USAO, and our law enforcement partners to aggressively investigate, prosecute, and hold accountable those who undermine justice.”
The man was pulled over by the Carson City Sheriff's Office on April 22, 2022, for an obstructed license plate. Deputies noticed what appeared to be red and blue police lights in Iagounov's vehicle and a counterfeit FBI badge on his person. The Carson City Sheriff's Office then allegedly became a target of Iagonounov's.
On July 5, 2022, the man sent a search warrant he had created to the U.S. Capitol Police, falsely claiming it was signed by a Special Agent of NASA Office of Inspector General (NASA-OIG) and appearing to be authorized by a U.S. District Court judge for the District of Columbia. The Capitol Police investigated the document, determined it was fake, and referred it to NASA-OIG for further investigation.
On July 11, 2022, Iagounov again pretended to be the same fictional NASA-OIG agent, and sent the warrant to the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. This time, he sent it without a judge’s signature, indicating it was for an “emergency filing” and required a judge’s signature. He sent it from an email address designed to look like it was from a United States government agency, but which the defendant owned and had named to look like a government agency’s internet domain.
On July 18, 2022, Iagounov again sent the fake search warrant, purporting to be signed by the same fictitious NASA-OIG agent. He sent it to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Georgia, again indicating that it was for an emergency filing and needed a judge’s signature immediately.
Finally, on July 24, 2022, Iagounov faxed a letter, under the name of a real NASA-OIG supervising agent, to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida. In that letter, he claimed to be following up on the warrant, stating that an “exigent circumstance” required a judge’s signature immediately. The faxed letter included an anonymous email address for the agent that actually belonged to Iagounov. Several days earlier, on July 15, Iagounov had sent his warrant to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Florida but had received no response.
In each case, given the apparently sensitive nature of the materials the defendant’s warrant sought, the receiving personnel for the Courts referred the matter to NASA-OIG for review and investigation.
This case is the product of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and NASA Office of Inspector General, with assistance by the South Lake Tahoe Police Department and the Carson City Sheriff’s Office. Assistant U.S. Attorney James Conolly and Audrey Hemesath are prosecuting the case.
He is scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Daniel J. Calabretta on October 17, 2024. He faces a maximum statutory penalty of three years in prison and a $250,000 fine, per count of conviction. The actual sentence, however, will be determined at the discretion of the court after consideration of any applicable statutory factors and the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which take into account a number of variables.
