USC ex-scientist from Iran snared in sex sting headed for federal criminal trial

A University of South Carolina ex-scientist from Iran snared in a law enforcement sex sting operation is at last headed for a federal criminal trial.

The scientist, Mohammad Ebrahim Torki Harchegani, 39, was arrested in a law enforcement sting in Richland County in December 2024 when he tried to entice someone he had met on the internet and who was supposedly 14 to have sex with him.

Harchegani, who is known to use the alias “Alex Shaw,” was arrested when he showed up at a Richland County house in December 2024 where he thought the 14-year-old was waiting for him. Instead, he found a team of Richland County sheriff’s officers who investigate internet crimes against children. They arrested him. The case was then transferred to federal authorities.

He is now charged with attempted coercion and enticement of a minor. He is a citizen of Iran and a legal permanent resident of the United States, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.

Harchegani’s jury trial will start May 13 at the Columbia Matthew Perry federal courthouse before U.S. District Judge Mary Lewis.

If convicted, he will have to serve a minimum of 10 years.

tweakedHarchegani has been suspended without pay from his job at USC. He has been in jail since last year. He was hired as a “research scientist” by the university, and his resume included numerous teaching posts and lectureships at other higher educational institutions.

According to evidence in his case, Harchehani chatted by text with someone he thought was a teenage girl on a dating app called Badoo. But the person on the other end of the chat was really a law enforcement officer pretending to be a 14-year-old girl, according to evidence in his case.

In the conversations, Harchegani knew he was dealing with a 14-year-old girl, and they discussed having sex at her house while her parents were at work, an FBI agent said in a hearing last year.

“He (Harchegani) drove his vehicle that was registered in his name to a designated address that was given to him by the undercover. He drove up to the house, walked up to the front door with a backpack and a bag of McDonald’s in his hands, and then went around to the side of the house, and walked in to the side door underneath the carport, and he was arrested by Richland County Sheriff’s Department when he walked in,” FBI agent Jacquelyn Hamelrick testified at the hearing.

Harchegani referred to himself as a “professor,” Hamelrick testified.

After that hearing, in January 2025, Magistrate Judge Paige Gossett found that Harchegani was a flight risk and posed a danger to the community. He has been in jail ever since.

Harchegani worked full time at the University of South Carolina in the College of Engineering and Computing where his title was assistant scientist, according to USC records given to The State newspaper in response to a Freedom of Information request.

He worked at the university from June 2024 to December 10, 2024. His salary was $60,300, USC records said.

In an application for a job at USC, Harchegani said his educational experience included being at Texas A&M University getting a doctorate from 2013 to 2019. From 2009 to 2011, he was in a master of science program at Teheran University in Iran, his resume showed.

Immediately before coming to USC in 2024, he was for one year a visiting assistant professor at the College of Engineering at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida, his resume showed.

He also taught at Texas A&M and Embry-Riddle, according to his resume.

Harchegani’s trial date was set Tuesday by Judge Lewis in a hearing after she consulted with federal prosecutors Elle Klein and Winston Holliday and public defender Taylor Gilliam, who was filling in for Harchegani’s lawyer, public defender Nate Brady.

This story was originally published March 19, 2026 at 5:30 AM with the headline "USC ex-scientist from Iran snared in sex sting headed for federal criminal trial."