NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. prosecutors are seeking leniency at next-week's sentencing of a Turkish-Iranian businessman who admitted to helping Iranians and their government evade sanctions and who provided key testimony at a 2017 corruption trial that strained relations between the U.S. and Turkey.
The prosecutors said Monday in a sentencing memorandum to a New York federal judge that international gold trader Reza Zarrab provided substantial help to the U.S. when he revealed paying millions of dollars in bribes to government and banking officials in Turkey and provided key testimony at the December 2017 trial.
His testimony preceded the conviction of Turkish banker Mehmet Hakan Atilla and a sentence of over two years in prison for the banker. After the trial, Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the verdict “scandalous.”
In a presentence memorandum, prosecutors wrote that Zarrab's October 2017 guilty plea to conspiracy, bank fraud and money laundering charges and the cooperation that followed had been “truthful, complete and reliable” and significant, useful and timely. They also noted that he had suffered “danger or risk” as a result of his help.
During a week on the witness stand at the 2017 trial, Zarrab said he was attacked in prison by a knife-wielding fellow inmate who claimed he was told to kill him for cooperating with U.S. authorities.
In their memorandum Monday, prosecutors referenced the threat, which resulted in Zarrab being moved from prison and into FBI custody.
According to prosecutors, the inmate at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn who threatened Zarrab told him that he would be killed because he was cooperating against “big people in Turkey.”
Prosecutors also said that the government of Turkey imposed broad freezes and seizures of Zarrab's assets after he began cooperating.
The lengthy delay for Zarrab's sentencing is not uncommon in a complex prosecution that carried the potential for multiple trials in which Zarrab's testimony might be necessary.
Last month, Judge Richard M. Berman in Manhattan approved the dismissal of a criminal case the U.S. government had brought against Halkbank, a state-owned bank in Turkey. The U.S. government's request to drop the charges came amid warm ties between Erdogan and President Donald Trump.
After meeting with Trump last year at the NATO summit in The Hague, Erdogan told reporters that the U.S. president is quick to return his calls, an anecdote that signaled their close ties.
“With my friend Trump, we are opening the door to a new era in Turkish‑American relations,” said Erdogan, who has been president of Turkey for 13 years.
FILE - In this Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2013 photo, Turkish-Iranian businessman Reza Zarrab, who is charged currently in the U.S. for evading sanctions on Iran, is surrounded by the media members as he arrives at a courthouse in Istanbul, in a separate case against him. (Depo Photos via AP, File)
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The grandfather of a man who was shot and killed by the Tennessee National Guard in Memphis over the weekend says he wants answers from law enforcement.
Evaniel Johnson said he is waiting to see if video footage supports the police narrative that his 20-year-old grandson, Tyrin Johnson, turned toward U.S. guard members with a gun while running from them early Sunday. Memphis police say the guard members were responding to a report of gunfire.
The National Guard members had been assigned to a crime-fighting patrol in Memphis created last year by President Donald Trump, who has sent troops and federal agents to Democratic-run cities he described as crime-ridden.
“Show me the video,” Evaniel Johnson told The Associated Press. “Please show me that — and then I’m OK. Until you show me that, I’m gonna fight and advocate for my grandson until there’s no breath in me.”
Johnson, a former correctional officer with the Davidson County Sheriff's Office in Nashville, disputes that his grandson would have tried to fire a gun at U.S. guard members and that deadly force would be needed if he was running away. His grandson, he said, was “no hoodlum.”
According to his grandfather, Tyrin Johnson carried a gun for protection after being “jumped” recently in Nashville and was likely wary about being attacked again over a murky social media feud.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation says it is reviewing the shooting and that two guard members fired their weapons. Johnson’s family says they were told by the TBI that he was shot twice in the chest. The Memphis Police Department declined to comment on what footage existed and when it would be released.
The National Guard did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether the two members involved in the shooting had been placed on leave.
Tennessee Senate Democratic Leader Raumesh Akbari and Chairwoman London Lamar, both of Memphis, issued joint statement expressing their sympathy and emphasizing the need for transparency during the investigation. They asked the TBI to release any available video as soon as it is possible to do so without jeopardizing the investigation.
“Transparency serves everyone — the Johnson family, the members of the National Guard involved, and a community that deserves confidence in the outcome, whatever the facts ultimately show,” they wrote.
State Rep. Justin Pearson, a Democrat running for the U.S. House, echoed the call for a transparent investigation and demanded the disbanding of the federal task force.
“Memphis does not need armed soldiers in our streets terrifying our people,” he said in a statement.
Trump's decision to send Tennessee National Guard troops to Memphis to combat crime was met with a mixed response from residents and was the subject of a lawsuit. However, it was never the subject of widespread protests.
TBI data shows that at least three people have died in four shootings by officers tied to the federal task force.
Tennessee Republican Gov. Bill Lee embraced federal intervention, while Democratic Memphis Mayor Paul Young took a pragmatic approach. Young said he never asked for National Guard troops but recognized they were coming regardless of his opinion.
Tyrin Johnson did not appear to have a criminal history besides a handful of traffic violations, according to a review of online federal and state court records and Memphis and Nashville courts. In May, he was arrested for failing to appear at a 2025 hearing for driving without a license in Wilson County, just outside Nashville. He bonded out, records show.
He was enrolled in Tennessee State University from August 2023 to May 2024, according to university spokesperson Angel Higgins.
Evaniel Johnson said he had hoped his grandson would return to university and he was training him to take on a bigger role in the family's real estate development business, including lining up a project for him in Nashville to oversee in the coming weeks.
On the Fourth of July, Evaniel Johnson said his family had gathered on his back porch in Nashville to play cards. He wished his grandson had stayed with them. Instead, Tyrin Johnson ended up in Memphis.
“He was down there like all the rest of the people trying to enjoy the Fourth of July,” Johnson said. “His future was buying homes, living life, taking care of his little baby. He had a future. It’s gone now.”
Brook reported from New Orleans.
Brook is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
Evaniel Johnson expresses his concern about the circumstances of his grandson's death Monday, July 6, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn., after his grandson, Tyrin Johnson, was fatally shot by two Tennessee National Guard members in Memphis on Sunday, morning. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
Evaniel Johnson expresses his concern about the circumstances of his grandson's death Monday, July 6, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn., after his grandson, Tyrin Johnson, was fatally shot by two Tennessee National Guard members in Memphis on Sunday, morning. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
FILE - Members from the National Guard working as part of the Memphis Safe Task Force conduct a community safety patrol at Tom Lee Park, Oct. 12, 2025, in Memphis, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV, File)
Evaniel Johnson poses with a picture of his grandson, Tyrin Johnson, Monday, July 6, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn., after his grandson was fatally shot by two Tennessee National Guard members in Memphis on Sunday, morning. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
