ITAR violation of the week, #1: The one involving John Mayer's allegedly running an international arms trafficking ring and sexual napalm
In which I examine two pieces of public record featuring John Mayer, one describing Jessica Simpson as "sexual napalm," the other shipping nightvision to Russia. Both regrettable. Only one criminal.
Two documents open this post. One involved the actual John Mayer. The other just borrowed his name to ship night vision to Moscow. Both demonstrated a concerning lack of self-preservation instinct.
Neither involved a functional understanding of what shouldn’t be committed to the public record.
Playboy Magazine, March 2010
PLAYBOY: In 2006 you began dating Jessica Simpson, and the paparazzi started stalking you, turning you into a tabloid fixture. Certainly you knew that was going to happen.
MAYER: It wasn’t as direct as me saying “I now make the choice to bring the paparazzi into my life.” I really said, “I now make the choice to sleep with Jessica Simpson.” That was stronger than my desire to stay out of the paparazzi’s eye. That girl, for me, is a drug. And drugs aren’t good for you if you do lots of them. Yeah, that girl is like crack cocaine to me.
United States v. Panchernikov et al., Central District of California, 2021
Overt Act No. 26: On November 20, 2017, an eBay seller e-mailed defendant GOHMAN, “This is an ITAR item and must stay in the US.” Defendant GOHMAN replied, “Sure stay in US.”
Playboy Magazine, March 2010
PLAYBOY: You were addicted to Jessica Simpson?
MAYER: Sexually it was crazy. That’s all I’ll say. It was like napalm, sexual napalm.
United States v. Panchernikov et al., Central District of California, 2021
Overt Act No. 41: On January 5, 2018, defendant GOHMAN e-mailed defendant SHIFRIN instructions for sending packages to three addresses in Moscow, Russia: from “John Mayer” at 687 N. Milwaukee Ave, Vernon Hills, Illinois to “Olga Sotnikova,” with the contents listed as “Manual tool Pacific.”
Playboy Magazine, March 2010
MAYER: Have you ever been with a girl who made you want to quit the rest of your life? Did you ever say, “I want to quit my life and just snort you?”
United States v. Panchernikov et al., Central District of California, 2021
Overt Act No. 52: On February 24, 2018, an unknown co-conspirator exported a package to “Olga Sotnikova.” Sender: “John Mayer,” an alias. Contents: “Kitchen Accessories, Women Clothes, Women Shoes.”
Photo by Nikita Karimov on Unsplash
What better way to talk about arms export than consider how John Mayer’s indubitably good name was involved in an international arms trafficking scheme?
For anyone who doesn’t spend their free time reading export control regulations (I don’t blame you, though there are always so many hidden gems in legal documents, they’re a veritable frenzy of easter eggs), ITAR stands for the International Traffic in Arms Regulations. For some quick historical context to understand how this works as a legal instrument given that ITAR violations can be used in civil and criminal charges, ITAR is the regulatory framework implementing the actual law of the Arms Export Control Act (AECA) which was passed by the U.S. Congress back in 1976.
What actually is ITAR? An introduction to arms export regulations
To begin with, ITAR is the U.S. legislative instrument that controls defense articles and technical data. The items on the United States Munitions List exist there because they change what’s possible on a battlefield, so for example, think about how night vision devices let you see in complete darkness while thermal scopes let you see heat signatures through walls, and why that can become very problematic very quickly depending on how its used.
Sidenote: As I write this, Carrie Bradshaw begins to beckon me as I couldn’t help but wonder…was there an episode of the 1970s children’s cartoon Schoolhouse Rock that explained ITAR, for example, an episode about export controls? Imagine animating ‘I’m Just a Bill’ but make it about thermal rifle scopes? Could AI video technology be used for this? Ani, author note to self for future potential inquiry. As such, when people get charged with things like import/export arms smuggling, it’s technically for violating the AECA, but everyone just says “ITAR violation” because that’s the regulatory framework you’re actually dealing with on the day to day basis (I guess I could subtitle these as ‘Arms Export Control Act Violation of the Week’ for SEO purposes…).
How people end up violating ITAR
Now, ITAR is a legal liability labyrinth and most people have absolutely no clue what’s compliant unless they’re either extremely specialized in export controls or have been scared straight by a compliance officer at some point. As we’ll see throughout this series, these violations exist on a spectrum ranging from people who genuinely had no idea this was even a thing to those who knew exactly what they were doing and tried to cover it up by using the name of a washed-up guitarist.
Ways to think about controlled items (with help from vampires hiding in Staten Island the past 200 years)
I think one helpful way to understand what ITAR covers is to wonder how it works in practice, to imagine it in action. Ask yourself: What is something on the military grade level of power that needs to be controlled and have legislative framing for its use, dissemination, etc.? How does something get to that level? In asking myself this, I think of a clip from the TV series ‘What We Do In the Shadows’ (about a group of vampires living in Staten Island, a spin-off of the eponymous movie written by Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement). There’s an episode where the beleaguering energy vampire Colin Robinson and the beleaguered aristocratic vampire Laszlo Cravensworth must defend themselves from a beguiling deadly siren beckoning with her swan song which includes a hauntingly melodic cover of LMFAO’s 2009 hit ‘Shots Ft. Lil Jon’’.
That’s how one of the gang, Laszlo, ends up being bewitched by a Best Buy representative when buying headphones with maximum surround sound to protect himself from the siren. Think about this and imagine ITAR as thus the military grade version of these tools - they are not mere consumer electronics though they could certainly pass for it. I mean, this isn’t Best Buy, it’s not like you’re Laszlo Cravensworth going to test new headphones. Same applies to night vision goggles or night vision cameras, such as this one for sale at Target for 199.99.
These would not fall under ITAR - though I also have no idea why for many use cases this would be used as a consumer, I’m racking my brains but the only thing I can think of is for a Halloween costume in honor of Tom Clancy’s ‘Splinter Cell’ or maybe as Solid Snake from Metal Gear Solid? You tell me! Nonetheless, you could buy it and use it in the U.S. but the moment you pack these to go abroad with them, they may become an export subject to control. This, of course, brings us back to the perennial ‘why would you even be buying these to pack them in your beat up luggage anyways to begin with, and don’t tell me, as it is not my circus nor monkeys to contend with’.
So how did John Mayer’s good name get evoked by Russians in an import export scheme involving night vision material?
The case: when a remarkably ordinary looking arms trafficking ring used a remarkably extraordinarily cringe inducing name to do its law breaking
Between 2016 and 2020, a network of people bought thermal imaging riflescopes and night vision goggles from U.S. online sellers, routed them through apartments in California and Illinois, then forwarded them to Moscow. The whole operation was extremely mundane in its consumer facing operation - they were selling these night vision materials just as readily as you or I would be selling antiques on eBay or clothing on Poshmark, use USPS to ship it, all of this ho-hum quotidian methodology via mailrooms and brown boxes which looked like any other personal shipment…except for the highly regulated ITAR ruled equipment inside of them. In fact, some had even caught on, as an email exchange from eBay in November 2017 recounts - a seller let the scheming buyers know - ‘This is an ITAR item and must stay in the US.’ They responded with: ‘Sure stay in US.’ Two months later, that same buyer (Gohman) shipped the equipment to Moscow from the U.S. and listed it as ‘Manual tool Pacific’ from a sender named John Mayer.
The shipment descriptions read like thrift store receipts and the purported sender names rotated through a catalog of fake names including Alex Brown, Oleg Semenov, and yes, John Mayer.
Yes, yes, I know. I can hear you tensing up while reading this. Why? Why would anyone do this? Someone somewhere somehow decided to ship highly regulated defense equipment to Moscow while listing the sender as “John Mayer” on the customs form, as if that’s a normal name to put on a box containing thermal rifle scopes headed to Russia. Now, I don’t know what night vision goggles are like but since wearing glasses can already get foggy, I’m inclined to just automatically imagine some creepy mouthbreather situation where someone is saying ‘your body is a wonderland’ but literally it’s your body’s heat channels. One shudders. Egads. Ick.
Non merci, but apparently, it really truly happened - one “John Mayer” in Vernon Hills, Illinois, serial shipper of ITAR controlled items with the contents obfuscated and listed as things like “Manual tool Pacific” and “Kitchen Accessories, Women Clothes, Women Shoes.” The actual contents were night vision devices and thermal imaging equipment that cost between $6,000 and $17,500 per unit, and the declared values conveniently happened to stay under $2,500 where export filings would get more attention.
Multiple people were charged in this arms trafficking ring of spectacularly bad judgment and bad taste where they had exported 19+ controlled items. The charges filed by the Department of Justice were straightforward conspiracy to violate the arms control export act, given that no export licenses were obtained while thermal imaging and night vision materials were sent to a foreign country, let alone sent to Russia.
Igor Panchernikov, an Israeli citizen who lived in Corona, California and had served in the U.S. Air Force Reserve, pleaded guilty in March 2023 and got 27 months. Another defendant, Elena Shifrin of Mundelein, Illinois got 24 months in July 2024. Interestingly, charges against a third defendant, Vladimir Pridacha were dismissed on January 19 at the request of prosecutors while the other two case defendants are fugitives who remain on the run (though decidedly not in the style of Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s ‘03 Bonnie and Clyde) - they are Boris Polosin of Russia and Vladimir Gohman of Israel.
The part that haunts me most
Why John Mayer though? Some questions have no good answers
Why they used John Mayer’s name remains unknown, and this is probably the part of the case that haunts me the most. Of all the names and people in the world to choose, why John Mayer? I willingly listened to 1 minute and 54 seconds of a John Mayer song as a part of my research for this and I made it to the first 28 seconds of Mayer’s cover of Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin’” and I just know in my heart of hearts I have accidentally ruined this song forever (I’m more of a “Last Dance With Mary Jane” type anyways). Not the actual John Mayer, obviously, though given his 2010 Playboy interview where he described Jessica Simpson as “sexual napalm” and said “I want to quit my life and just snort you,” I guess the real John Mayer has also demonstrated questionable judgment about what shouldn’t be committed to the public record. Maybe there’s a karmic link here. Maybe they thought his music was so bad that there is little to no reason for anyone to look into him randomly shipping out items six times from a quiet suburb in Illinois. That cover of “Free Fallin’” also remains a real crime as far as I’m concerned.
At least the real John Mayer kept his contribution in the public record of bad decision making to magazine interviews instead of federal indictments.
Welcome to ITAR Violation of the Week, which is the only place I’ll ever willingly write or mention John Mayer of my own volition again (simply because of this case’s existence to begin with and the documentation of it for the series, never again!)