Assistant Attorney General Lisa Monaco, who heads the Justice Department’s national security division, said Massoud Habibion, 49, a US citizen and co-owner of Online Micro LLC, a Costa Mesa, California, company, pleaded guilty to violating the law under which most trade with Iran is banned.
Monaco said Mohsen Motamedian, 44, also a US citizen and the other co-owner of Online Micro, pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice.
Sentencing for both was set for May 16.
Under a plea agreement and related civil settlements with the Commerce Department, Habib-ion and his company have agreed to pay a $1.9 million judgment.
Motamedian separately agreed to a $50,000 penalty to settle a civil charge that he sought to induce someone to give a false statement to federal law enforcement agents.
The documents show that in May 2007, Online Micro bought 1,000 computers from Dell Inc. for $500,000. Later that year Dell began receiving service calls concerning the computers from persons in Iran and alerted the US authorities.
In all, the prosecution said, Online Micro and Habibion exported shipments of computer-related goods worth more than $4.9 million knowing that the majority of the goods were destined for Iran.
During the course of the investigation, the documents show that Habibion and Motamedian told an undercover government cooperator to lie to US law enforcement officials about the transactions.
They said Habibion and Motamedian told the cooperator to lie about Iran being the ultimate destination for the goods and counseled him to tell US law enforcement agents the goods remained in Dubai.