Justice Department charges Energy Department employee with attempting to aid Houthis
Yemen Herald News 
RICHLAND, United States — A U.S. Department of Energy employee has been charged with attempting to provide material support to Yemen’s Houthis, the Justice Department said.
Ashton Hamed Ellaboudy, 51, of Richland, Washington, was arrested on Oct. 1, the department said in a statement.
He is charged with attempting to provide material support or resources to the Houthis, which the United States has designated a foreign terrorist organization.
Ellaboudy faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison if convicted, according to the statement.
He made his initial appearance on Oct. 2 before a federal magistrate judge in Richland, in the Eastern District of Washington.
Ellaboudy denied the complaint at the hearing, Apple Valley News Now reported from the court.
Prosecutors asked that he be held pending trial, describing him as a danger to the United States, the outlet reported.
A detention hearing was set for Oct. 6, a status hearing for Oct. 8 and a preliminary hearing for Oct. 16, according to court records cited by KHQ.
The judge assigned a federal public defender, Craig Webster, then found Ellaboudy ineligible for publicly funded counsel on the basis of his income, Apple Valley News Now reported. He was ordered to retain a private lawyer by Oct. 8.
No trial date has been set.
The Justice Department said the FBI learned in December 2024 that Ellaboudy had bought precursor chemicals and components used in homemade explosive devices.
He also bought drone parts and components for remotely operated aerial systems, the department said.
The purchases were made between November 2024 and February 2025 and were shipped to his home in Richland, KHQ reported, citing court records.
Ellaboudy took sick leave in December 2024, telling his employer he had been exposed to nitric acid, KOMO News reported.
In September 2025 he travelled from Richland to Oman and then crossed into Yemen, intending to reach Sanaa, the Justice Department said.
Sanaa has been under Houthi control since 2014.
The department’s account says he intended to reach the capital and does not state whether he got there.
He used an official passport issued to him during earlier service with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, according to the department.
He returned to the United States on Sept. 26, 2025, arriving through Los Angeles, KHQ reported, citing court records.
The department said Ellaboudy gave expert electrical engineering advice on solar power generators and communications equipment.
He tested and modified equipment, supplied schematics and diagrams for integrating systems, and researched further equipment to improve Houthi communications, according to the statement.
He also communicated with an FBI confidential human source about communications equipment destined for Yemen, the department said.
“As alleged, a U.S. government employee traveled overseas and used his specialized expertise in an attempt to aid the Houthis,” said John A. Eisenberg, assistant attorney general for national security.
Jarod Brown, assistant director of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division, said the defendant “allegedly betrayed the U.S. and attempted to aid the Houthis.”
Ray Geimer, office manager of the Energy Department’s Hanford Field Office, said the case “did not involve an attempt to harm the Hanford Site.”
The Hanford Site, near Richland, was built during the Second World War as part of the Manhattan Project and produced plutonium for the United States nuclear weapons programme. It is now an Energy Department environmental cleanup site.
The case was investigated by the FBI’s Inland Northwest Joint Terrorism Task Force.
Joint terrorism task forces are led by the FBI and draw investigators from other federal agencies and from state and local police.
It is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Lisa Cartier-Giroux of the Eastern District of Washington, with trial attorneys Patrick Cashman and Ryan White of the Justice Department’s National Security Division counterterrorism section.
The account of Ellaboudy’s conduct rests on the Justice Department’s announcement and the criminal complaint it filed. Yemen Herald found no independent account of the alleged conduct, and the allegations have not been tested in court.
“The charges contained in the complaint are only allegations,” the department said. “A person is presumed innocent unless and until he or she is proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.”
The Houthis, who call themselves Ansar Allah, hold Sanaa and much of northern Yemen.
U.S. officials describe the group as backed by Iran.
The State Department designated the group a foreign terrorist organization in March 2025, acting on an executive order President Donald Trump signed on Jan. 22 of that year.
That order directed the secretary of state to report on a designation within 30 days and to decide within 15 days after that.
The group was designated during Trump’s first term, and the Biden administration revoked that designation in early 2021, citing humanitarian concerns.
The Biden administration applied a narrower specially designated global terrorist label in January 2024, after Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea.
A foreign terrorist organization designation makes it a federal crime to provide the group with material support, a category that covers personnel, training, expert advice and assistance, and equipment.
The detention hearing is listed for 11 a.m. at the federal building in Richland.
Richland sits in southeastern Washington and forms part of the Tri-Cities with Pasco and Kennewick.
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