Romanian-American sentenced in Iran jet parts plot

MIAMI (Reuters) - The Romanian-born owner of a U.S. aviation company was sentenced Thursday to nearly three years in prison for conspiring to ship parts for fighter jets and other military aircraft to Iran, prosecutors said.

Traian Bujduveanu pleaded guilty in April to one count of conspiracy to export goods in violation of the U.S. embargo against Iran.

Bujduveanu and his company, Plantation, Florida-based Orion Aviation, were charged last year along with another aviation company owner, Hassan Keshari and his Kesh Air International, in a plot to help Iran build up its military.

Prosecutors said Bujduveanu received e-mailed orders from Keshari requesting specific aircraft parts for buyers in Iran. The parts were shipped through a company in Dubai to the buyers using false shipping documents, they said.

The conspirators sent parts designed exclusively for the F-14 Tomcat fighter jet, the AH-1 Cobra attack helicopter and the CH-53 heavy-lift transport helicopter, prosecutors said.

U.S. District Judge Patricia Seitz sentenced Bujduveanu, a naturalized American citizen, to 35 months in prison.

Keshari, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Iran, was sentenced in May to 17 months in prison.

(Reporting by Jim Loney, editing by Jane Sutton)