SEN TIM SHEEHY: Gold Star families deserve justice. This $15B from Iran is a start
During my time serving in the Middle East, I witnessed firsthand Iran’s role in the systematic targeting and murder of Americans. For 47 years, the Iranian regime has deliberately and systematically killed thousands of American servicemembers and civilians, including good friends of mine, by funding and directing a network of proxy terrorist organizations that have directly benefited adversary states like China and Russia with cheap oil, rocket and drone technology and regional instability.
This proxy warfare against America isn’t cheap. Iran spends billions of dollars every year in support of foreign terrorism around the world. It is therefore critical that the United States maintain the integrity of its sanctions and military pressure against this rogue regime, especially in light of Iran’s attacks on civilian shipping and energy infrastructure in the Gulf.
Our sanctions starve the Iranian regime of the funds it needs to carry out violence and are a crucial financial tool to combating terrorism worldwide. That is why I was glad to see President Donald Trump’s signing in February 2025 of a National Security Presidential Memorandum directing the Secretary of the Treasury to impose maximum economic pressure on Iran.
Congress has also acted in its authority to enlist the power of U.S. courts to contain Iran’s influence. Specifically, these laws empower U.S. courts to order the turnover of illicit Iranian assets to the countless victims of Iranian terrorism. Under these laws, U.S. terrorism victims have scoured the globe for hidden Iranian assets, degrading Iran’s commercial cover activities and money laundering networks.
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In creating this program, Congress not only provided a pathway to justice for American families but also deprived Iran of billions of dollars that could otherwise be spent on more terror against innocent Americans and our brave servicemembers.
Right now, a group of victims of Iranian terrorism, led by the mother of 1st Lt. Jacob Fritz — who was abducted in 2007 from a U.S. compound in Iraq by an Iranian hit squad and summarily handcuffed, beaten and executed — are fighting to seize billions of dollars of Iranian cryptocurrency in federal court.
These Gold Star families submitted to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York hundreds of pages of expert reports and exhibits demonstrating how approximately $15 billion in Bitcoin were allegedly mined and held by the Iran and China Investment Development Group to help Iran evade sanctions. They have asked the court to turn over the funds to thousands of victims of Iranian terrorism with outstanding court judgments against Iran.
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Given Congress’ and Trump’s clear directive to bend all elements of national power to the containment of Iran, I was appalled to see the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Joseph Nocella Jr., decide to stand against these Gold Star families.
In public filings, Nocella argues – without any evidence that contradicts the Gold Star families’ expert reports and despite admitting in his own filings that some of the Bitcoin were mined in Iran – that the Bitcoin in question are not Iran-owned but are actually the proceeds of Southeast Asian scam centers run by Chen Zhi, a Cambodian citizen.
He is seeking for the court to turn over the Bitcoin to the United States government, pursuant to a civil forfeiture proceeding related to Chen’s alleged crimes, rather than to the victims of Iranian terrorism.
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After decades of brutal Iranian terror targeting, torturing and killing our warfighters and innocent civilians, there is no question these funds would be better used to provide justice to families who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country instead of padding the federal budget.
But the biggest problem with Nocella’s aggressive denial of Iranian involvement is that it risks the return of billions of dollars to Iran and its terrorist allies. If Nocella succeeds in convincing the court that the Bitcoin are not Iranian, it would mean they are not subject to U.S. sanctions against Iran. If he then proceeds to lose his forfeiture case, the return of the Bitcoin to Iran would be seemingly inevitable. This isn’t abstract; Nocella’s case is quite frankly an embarrassment to the justice system and a slap in the face to the families of those who put their lives on the line for this country.
By the terms of Nocella’s own forfeiture complaint, the Bitcoin were already outside of Chen’s control at the time of his alleged criminal fraud activity, and the complaint contains no evidence linking Chen’s alleged conduct in the United States to the Bitcoin.
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The criminal indictment against Chen contains photos allegedly depicting victims tortured by Chen’s criminal organization. As independent journalists have noted, rather than providing evidence of Chen’s bad acts, these photos appear to actually be, among other things, a viral social media photo of a man who had a serious accident six years ago and a man who got in an unrelated bar fight in 2015. You can’t make this up.
As was recently announced by the Department of Justice, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York worked cooperatively for years with victims of Iranian terrorism to dismantle an Iranian money laundering facility in Manhattan.
But in the Eastern District, what should be a straightforward process to obtain justice for our warfighters is careening toward becoming a national embarrassment. Nocella should stop fighting the Gold Star families and let them continue with their better researched and written case against Iran.
At a time when the U.S. is the closest it has been to eliminating this evil regime and negotiations are ongoing to establish peace in the region, we should do everything we can to keep this money out of the hands of terrorists instead of looking for ways to pad the government’s pockets.