(IntegrityTimes.com) – A man in South Lake Tahoe, California was found guilty on July 11 of impersonating a federal officer after he made bomb threats to multiple locations across the country and played the role of a federal agent to check whether his threats were successful. Anton Andreyevich Iagounov, 38, was convicted of three counts after a trial that lasted three days at Sacramento federal court.
US Attorney Phillip Talbert said in a statement on the day of the conviction that the defendant attempted to access protected information on numerous occasions by using falsified court documents. Iagounov created false investigative documents to impersonate an agent of NASA’s Office of Inspector General. The defendant sent the US Capitol Police a fabricated search warrant, which he claimed had been signed off by a NASA Special Agent and cleared by a US District Court judge. Following an investigation the Capitol Police concluded that the document was a fake.
After starting work on his elaborate schemes in late 2021, Iagounov reportedly made bomb threats to the Albany Fire Department in New York, the City of Temple in Texas, the Torrance Police Department in California and Republican Wyoming state Senator Cynthia Lummis, in addition to other targets. According to the FBI, the defendant used fake numbers to make the threats and followed up on them to find out if any action was taken by his targets.
In 2018 following spree shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida and Sante Fe High School in Texas, the FBI emphasized that hoax threats targeting schools and other public locations are serious offenses that disrupt education, needlessly endanger first responders and waste police resources. Several electronic devices were found at Iagounov’s home in South Lake Tahoe that contained evidence that he had impersonated a federal agent and called in the bomb threats.
Talbert stated that federal agencies such as NASA continue to work with the US Attorney’s Office to clamp down on illegal impersonation of their officers. Iagounov is due to appear in court on October 17 to receive his sentence from US District Judge Daniel Calabretta. The defendant faces up to three years in jail and a fine of $250,000 for each count.
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