Man sentenced to 15 years for assassination plot against Iranian American journalist

NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge gave a man would-be assassin the maximum 15 years in prison Wednesday for plotting to kill an Iranian American writer on behalf of Tehran after hearing the woman who was targeted describe multiple attempts on her life as threats against all Americans.

Judge Lewis J. Liman said Carlisle Rivera’s written conversations as he plotted to kill journalist and human rights advocate Masih Alinejad in Brooklyn in 2024 were “chilling” and he inflicted “great harm” on her and her husband.

Addressing the court, the couple described how assassination plots forced them to limit interactions with their children as they frequently changed residences and dodged threats from an unrelenting Iran.

“I’m just a woman,” Alinejad said. “My weapon is my voice. My weapon is my social media.”

She urged the judge to give Rivera the maximum sentence to send a message to anyone “targeting U.S. citizens on U.S. soil” and to “protect unarmed people like me now facing massacre in my country.”

People in Iran, Alinejad said, are “facing guns and bullets ... to protect the global security,” including for Americans.

Before the sentence was announced, Rivera, 51, told the judge: “I’m deeply sorry for my actions.”

Outside the Manhattan federal courthouse, Alinejad said the United States must be careful to not let indiscriminate killings happening in Iran spread to the U.S. As she spoke she held up a computer tablet and showed reporters video clips of body bags of some of the thousands of Iranians killed during recent protests.

Alinejad said she hoped President Donald Trump would go after Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei like he did Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who was seized in a January U.S. military raid and brought to face drug trafficking charges in New York. He has pleaded not guilty.

“I am calling on President Trump. Take action. Removing terrorists is not tragedy. It’s a sign of justice,” Alinejad said. She added, however, that she does not want Iran bombed — just the removal of its leaders.

She noted that U.S. authorities have said Iran's Revolutionary Guard was responsible for not only multiple plots against her life but also a plot against Trump.

Alinejad left Iran in 2009 following the country’s disputed presidential election and moved to the United States, where she launched online campaigns to encourage Iranian women to pose for pictures and videos showing their hair in defiance of a religious rule requiring headscarves.

An author and contributor to the Voice of America and CBS News, Alinejad became a citizen in 2019. She has traveled the world speaking to women and encouraging others to join her movement for women's freedom of expression, particularly those in Iran.

Last year she testified at the trial of two men charged with plotting to kidnap her from her Brooklyn home and kill her in 2022. A prosecutor said Iran put a $500,000 bounty on her head. The defendants, both natives of Azerbaijan, were convicted and sentenced to 25 years.

In November 2024 the Justice Department accused Tehran of authorizing a murder-for-hire plot against Trump days before he won reelection. An Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson reportedly denied the allegation. The person who tried to hire killers to go after Trump also organized the plot against Alinejad, authorities said.

Intelligence officials have said Iran opposed Trump's reelection. Trump’s first administration ended a nuclear deal with Iran, reimposed sanctions and ordered the killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, an act that prompted Iran’s leaders to vow revenge.

In court Wednesday, a prosecutor said Rivera was supposed to surveil Alinejad's planned February 2024 appearance at Fairfield University in Connecticut, an event that was canceled. Afterward, according to court papers, Rivera tried for months to surveil Alinejad at a Brooklyn home where she no longer lived.

During a break in the proceeding, Alinejad approached Rivera's fiancee, who sobbed as she hugged Alinejad, telling her: “I'm sorry. I'm sorry.”

Outside the courthouse afterward, Alinejad said she told the woman: “I said, 'I'm fighting for you, I'm fighting for all Americans ... when I asked President Trump to try to get the killers.'”

Iranian-American journalist Masih Alinejad speaks outside Manhattan federal court after the sentencing of a man who admitted to agreeing to try to kill her on behalf of the Iranian government Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Larry Neumeister)

Iranian-American journalist Masih Alinejad speaks outside Manhattan federal court after the sentencing of a man who admitted to agreeing to try to kill her on behalf of the Iranian government Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Larry Neumeister)

PARIS (AP) — Valentino’s first couture show since house founder Valentino Garavani’s funeral in Rome opened under a somber shadow, with many guests fresh from the ceremony — then snapped it off with a jolt of pure theater.

VIP guests, including Sir Elton John and Kirsten Dunst, were guided through near-darkness to their “seats”: simple stools set against circular pods, each punctured by a small kinky-feeling viewing window.

When the show began, the blinds lifted; the classical music soundtrack cut by the sharp punctuation of barking dogs.

Inside the hubs, models appeared like mannequins behind glass — private viewing holes turned into a couture peep show.

The white, sterile-lit staging leaned into the idea of a curated gaze.

Each guest saw a slice, not always the whole: a face, a shoulder, a shimmer of fabric, then the next.

The set read like a sterilized, futuristic cell — clean, white, clinical — made more unsettling by the soundscape, which kept slipping from elegance into angry animal sounds.

It was a clever piece of showcraft: creative director Alessandro Michele, a maximalist by instinct, using restriction as a hook.

He didn’t flood the room with spectacle; he rationed it.

The often dazzling clothes, however, didn't always match the set’s ambition.

Michele delivered disco sheen — sparkle, gems, bedazzled headwear and layered gold collars with a faint circus edge — but the couture itself felt comparatively restrained, even cautious.

There were strong flashes: bold sleeves that swelled toward leg-of-mutton proportions; sequined surfaces that caught the light with that Valentino polish; and occasional provocation in the way the body was framed.

The skirts of giant billowing dresses nicely overwhelmed the human form.

But for a designer known for excess, the collection often played it safe.

Front row heat underlined the stakes.

The room pulled in a heavy mix of celebrity and brand power, from Dakota Johnson to Lily Allen and Tyla, plus global ambassadors and high-wattage fashion regulars.

The atmosphere said “event.”

The collection said “reset”: a designer calibrating his volume, testing how far he can bend Valentino’s couture codes without breaking them.

Michele can stage a show — that much is settled.

For Suzy Menkes, the emotion around this Valentino couture show was immediate.

Coming straight from Garavani’s funeral in Rome to Paris couture week, the fashion industry doyenne and former International Herald Tribune fashion critic said “people do feel emotional” because “it is an end of an era.”

She described a wider pattern, too: “one designer or elderly designer after another” has “gently disappeared.” But this, she suggested, felt like “a special one” — not only inside the industry, but beyond it.

Menkes said Valentino was “a designer that everybody could understand,” with “so many clients and famous people” that it wasn’t just “those who were contracted to fashion who knew of him.”

Asked about her own history with Valentino, she traced it back “about 45 years ago,” when she was a junior journalist — “he didn’t pay much attention” to her, she recalled, though he was “always polite,” surrounded by “an enormous number of people” from fashion and “social society.”

She acknowledged that “we’ve got some really good designers who are taking over and doing a terrific job,” but insisted the transition doesn’t feel identical: “it’s not the same character… it doesn’t seem to be the same person who was there before.”

Faouzia poses for photographers upon arrival at the Valentino Spring/Summer 2026 Haute Couture collection presented in Paris, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)

Andrea Lattanzi, left, and Romana Maggiora Vergano pose for photographers upon arrival at the Valentino Spring/Summer 2026 Haute Couture collection presented in Paris, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)

Elton John, center, and David Furnish, right, arrive at the Valentino Spring/Summer 2026 Haute Couture collection presented in Paris, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)

Rei, left, and Liz from the group IVE pose for photographers upon arrival at the Valentino Spring/Summer 2026 Haute Couture collection presented in Paris, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)

Elton John, center, and David Furnish, right, depart the Valentino Spring/Summer 2026 Haute Couture collection presented in Paris, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)

Tyla poses for photographers upon arrival at the Valentino Spring/Summer 2026 Haute Couture collection presented in Paris, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)