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An organization linked to a designated Iranian front company in New York City keeps a high-level staffer in New Jersey, owns land in New Jersey, and has donated money to Rutgers University and the Rutgers University Foundation, as well as the foundation of former President Bill Clinton after Clinton blocked a N.J. terror victim from receiving court-ordered compensation from Iranian front companies, The Jewish State has learned.

On Dec. 17, 2008, the U.S. Treasury Department designated midtown Manhattan's Assa Corp., and its parent company, Assa Co. Ltd., as a front company for an Iranian bank that has helped fund the Iranian nuclear program. Assa Corp. co-owns 650 Fifth Avenue, in Manhattan, along with the Alavi Foundation, an organization set up in the 1970s as the Pahlavi Foundation by the then-shah of Iran.

The bank, Bank Melli, was designated in 1999 as an entity that was owned or controlled by the Iranian government. According to Treasury, "Bank Melli created Assa Corp. as a vehicle to hold Bank Melli's interest in" 650 Fifth Ave. Further, "Assa Corp. has repeatedly transferred rental income generated from the 650 Fifth Avenue partnership back to Bank Melli through Assa Co. Ltd. Assa Corp. also has regularly followed Bank Melli's instructions with regard to Assa Corp.'s affairs and its management of the investment, and has regularly reported back to Bank Melli on its financial situation, including frequently responding to Bank Melli requests for audits and information regarding company expenses."

The connection between the Alavi Foundation and Assa Corp. as more than just a business partnership, according to the FBI, became clear shortly after Assa was designated. FBI agents visited the president of Alavi, Farshid Jahedi, on Dec. 17 to serve Jahedi with a grand jury subpoena. The subpoena was for any and all documents related to Alavi, Assa, and 650 Fifth Avenue.

According to an FBI complaint obtained by The Jewish State, federal agents conducting surveillance on Jahedi witnessed the following on Dec. 18: Jahedi traveled to his home town, exited his car, looked around to make sure he wasn't being watched, and then dumped papers into the trash can. Agents then retrieved the documents, and found that they related to the business dealings among the three companies in question. Jahedi was then arrested.

The designations are part of the Bush administration's efforts to crack down on persons or companies that help fund or provide other material support to Iran's nuclear weapons program. President George W. Bush signed an executive order on June 29, 2005 to block the property and freeze assets of proliferators of weapons of mass destruction and their supporters.

According to the Alavi Foundation's 2007 tax returns, the organization owns land in New Jersey, and its full-time program coordinator, Ali Aliabadi, lives in Nutley and is paid more than $56,000 a year for his work with the organization. Also according to those 2007 returns, Alavi gave $40,500 to Rutgers University. According to its 2006 tax returns, Alavi gave $163,600 to Rutgers, and in the same year gave $75,000 to the Rutgers University Foundation. According to its Web site, the Rutgers University Foundation provides "the bridge between donors and the schools and programs, faculty and students that make up this university...."

The Alavi Foundation was at the center of a high-profile terror-funding case in the 1990s. In April 1995, 20-year-old West Orange resident Alisa Flatow was one of the victims of an Arab terrorist attack on a Jewish neighborhood in the Gaza Strip. Flatow's father, Stephen Flatow, received support from N.J. Rep. Jim Saxton (R) and Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D), who helped push through legislation allowing victims of state-sponsored terrorist attacks to seek compensation in U.S. courts. The lawmakers acted on this after it became clear that the Iranian regime had sponsored and assisted Flatow's murderers.

The Flatows then sued the Iranian government. The Iranians were ordered to pay the Flatows, who were looking to set up scholarship charities, $247.5 million in damages. Iran defaulted, leading the Flatows and their supporters to seek action against Iranian property in the U.S., such as 650 Fifth Avenue and other Bank Melli/Alavi assets.

According to investigative journalist Kenneth R. Timmerman, Lautenberg wrote a letter to the State Department requesting assistance. Clinton administration Assistant Secretary of State Barbara Larkin replied that Iran held no assets owned or controlled by the U.S. that could be used to pay the damages. In June 1998, the Clinton Justice Department appeared in court to oppose the Flatow family's subpoenas for information on Iranian assets in the U.S.

Regardless, the judge ordered ownership of certain Iranian properties to be transferred to the Flatows. According to Timmerman, the Justice Department then blocked that transfer.

The Jewish State can thus far confirm only one donation -- of $30,000 -- from Alavi to Clinton's foundation after that case.