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DOE employee arrested for allegedly aiding Houthis — faces up to 20 years
Ashton Hamed Ellaboudy, 51, a DOE employee from Richland, Washington, was arrested Oct. 1 and charged with attempting to provide material support to the Houthis, facing up to 20 years. He allegedly bought explosive precursors, traveled into Houthi-held Yemen on an official passport, and advised an FBI source posing as a Houthi associate.
Why it matters
Ashton Hamed Ellaboudy, 51, a U.S. Department of Energy employee from Richland, Washington, was arrested on the morning of October 1 and charged with attempting to provide material support or resources to the Houthis, a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison. Prosecutors allege he bought explosive precursor chemicals and drone parts, traveled on an official U.S. passport into Houthi-controlled Yemen, and gave engineering advice to an FBI source he believed was working for the Houthis.
Full report
According to the Justice Department's October 1 press release and a federal complaint filed September 30 in the Eastern District of Washington, Ellaboudy allegedly purchased precursor chemicals — including nitric acid, ammonium nitrate, hydrogen peroxide, sulfuric acid, potassium nitrate and aluminum powder — and drone parts between November 2024 and February 2025. In September 2025 he allegedly used an official U.S. passport to travel from Richland to Oman and crossed into Houthi-controlled Yemen toward Sanaa, later telling U.S. Customs officers he had been on official government business — a claim his DOE supervisor said was unauthorized.
Investigators also allege Ellaboudy provided expert electrical-engineering advice and schematics to an FBI confidential human source posing as an associate of a Houthi "Colonel," helping test and modify solar generators and communications equipment intended for a mobile communications center in Yemen. DOJ National Security Assistant Attorney General John Eisenberg called the allegations "so deeply disturbing that they almost defy imagination." The case was investigated by the FBI's Inland Northwest Joint Terrorism Task Force; DOE's Hanford Field Office said there was no threat to the Hanford Site. Ellaboudy is scheduled for an initial appearance before a federal magistrate judge in Richland at 11:00 a.m. on October 2.
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