Trial over an alleged Iran-backed plot to assassinate American journalist Masih Alinejad reached a New York city federal court

Prosecutors say that Iranian officials commissioned two purported Russian gang members to kill journalist and Iranian exile Masih Alinejad.

This trial now has its own pizza connection. Bungling hitman Khalid Mehdiyev admitted in court today that instead of a cool, collected, globe-trotting assassin, he was actually just a guy who worked at a pizza joint — and that might explain the raft of errors he made when he tried to clip an exiled Iranian-American journalist in Brooklyn three years ago.