FEDERAL IMPOSTER

anton_imposter

Anton Andreyevich Iagounov was an imposter who paraded around as a federal officer.

BY THE LEGAL EAGLE

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A federal grand jury returned a four-count indictment on Thursday against Anton Andreyevich Iagounov, 38, of South Lake Tahoe, charging him with falsely impersonating a federal officer, U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert announced.

According to court documents, Iagounov pretended to be a federal law enforcement agent by creating false investigative documents, which purported to be sent by a federal agent, in an attempt to obtain government documents and other sensitive information. On July 5, 2022, Iagounov sent a search warrant that he created to the U.S. Capitol Police, falsely claiming it was signed by a Special Agent of the NASA Office of the Inspector General (NASA-OIG) and appearing to be authorized by the Chief District Judge for the District of Columbia.

On July 11, 2022, Iagounov again pretended to be a NASA-OIG agent, created a fake search warrant, and emailed it to the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. He sent it from an email address with an internet domain that he 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, and sent it to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Georgia. 



For instance, he sent a fake search warrant to the U.S. Capitol Police, claiming it was signed by a NASA Office of Inspector General (NASA-OIG) agent. He repeated similar attempts with other federal courts, using email addresses and domains designed to look like they belonged to government agencies.



After a three-day trial, Iagounov was found guilty on four counts of impersonating a federal officerhttps://www.justice.gov/usao-edca/pr/south-lake-tahoe-man-convicted-impersonating-federal-officers. If convicted on all counts, he faces a maximum penalty of three years in prison and a $250,000 fine per count

https://www.justice.gov/usao-edca/pr/south-lake-tahoe-man-indicted-impersonating-federal-officer.