Dr. Mohsen Hosseinkhani, 40, was a medical researcher and was fired by the lab where he worked. He is accused of trying to get revenge for his firing by switching the IDs of lab rats so as to ruin all the research being done there.
He is also charged with the theft of laboratory materials—stem cell cultures, antibodies and other scientific material and equipment from the Mount Sinai Medical Center lab where he had had a fellowship.
Hosseinkhani was arrested in November on grand larceny and burglary charges. He was freed on $5,000 bond and due to return to court last Tuesday. But he didn’t show up.
Hosseinkhani had been a cardiology fellow at the Manhattan hospital, but he lost his post in June, authorities said. The New York Post said he was found faking research results. For unexplained reasons, he still had an ID card and used it to return to the lab in July and again in late November, police said. Surveillance cameras uncovered those visits.
He stole more than $3,000 worth of pipettes, plus more than $3,000 in antibodies and other materials in his two visits, according to a criminal complaint. Police said he also switched the mouse ID tags during those visits.
Prosecutors had taken Hosseinkhani’s passport, and Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Germaine Corprew said he was expressly told not to leave the country. But defense lawyer Barry Apfelbaum told the court the researcher had somehow returned to Iran nonetheless, rejoining his wife.
Hosseinkhani was not a citizen and The New York Post said his Iranian passport was in court possession. That raised the question of whether the Iranian consular office in the United States had issued Hosseinkhani a new passport.
Apfelbaum, who said he was in phone and email contact with Hosseinkhani, told the court Hosseinkhani fled because “he was unable to maintain sufficient funds” to stay in the United States.
Manhattan State Supreme Court Justice Michael Obus issued an arrest warrant for Hosseinkhani, saying there “really seems to be no good reason why he is not here.”
Apfelbaum, a lawyer with New York County Defender Services, said, “Unless he decides to come back on his own, it sounds like that’s the last we’ll ever see of him.”
There is no extradition treaty between the United States and Iran.
Hosseinkhani faces up to 3 1/2 years in jail if convicted on all the charges.
