NCRI – The owner of a U.S. company that makes steel-processing equipment has been sentenced to a year on probation for conspiring to illegally sell a machine to an Iranian firm.
Helmut Oertmann, the CEO and owner for Hetran Inc. based in Pennsylvania was sentenced on Wednesday.Prosecutors say Oertmann falsified paperwork to get around a U.S. trade embargo and deliver an $800,000 machine to be used in Iran for the production of high-grade steel.
His company has been fined already by the U.S. Department of Commerce to $837,500 cash, $500,000 of which was suspended.
Charges also were filed against three Iranian nationals and two Iranian firms.
