A 51-year-old Richland man will remain in jail after denying that he tried to help foreign terrorists.
Aston Ellaboudy appeared in federal court Thursday a week after his arrest to enter an innocent plea on one count of attempting to provide material support to terrorists.
His plea came before Magistrate Judge James Goeke ruled that he was too potentially dangerous to be allowed out of jail before his trial.
Ellaboudy, a naturalized citizen, is accused of manufacturing a small amount of a highly explosive chemical, meeting with two FBI informants about building a communication system and trying to meet with the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Cashman said a combination of elements made releasing Ellaboudy a dangerous prospect, including his willingness to make a dangerous explosive and lie to officials and misuse federally issued identification.
Prosecutors say he was trained to know better as part of his job at the Hanford site.
Ellaboudy’s defense attorney Craig Webster said his client should be viewed as innocent until proven guilty. He noted Ellaboudy was a U.S. Navy veteran who had lived in the United States for nearly three decades.
Ellaboudy is still being required to hire his own attorney, but for Thursday’s hearing he was represented by a federal public defender.
Prosecutors pointed to the 50 grams of TATP, a highly explosive chemical, found in a shed at Ellaboudy’s home. The electrical engineer who worked at the Hanford site for the U.S. Department of Energy appears to have purchased the chemicals to make the explosive and then made it.
Cashman said there is no legitimate reason to have the chemical. He did not say what the government thought Ellaboudy might have planned to do with the explosive chemical, though his public defender has argued it was used for hobby rocketry.
In September 2025, he allegedly used a special-issue U.S. Government passport, or “red passport” to travel from Oman into Yemen without government authorization, according to court documents. He received the passport while working for the Army Corps of Engineers at McNary Dam in Umatilla County, Ore.
He tried to reach Yemen’s capital Sanaa, which is controlled by Iranian-backed Houthis, according to court documents. The United States has designated the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization.
It’s still not clear what information he was trying to communicate to people in control there.
Cashman pointed out that the special passport wasn’t supposed to be used that way, and when he returned to Oman, he said he had gone there to inspect missile defense sites.
“When you look at the totality of the circumstances, no condition or set of conditions would guarantee the safety of the public,” he said.
Webster pointed out that much of the prosecution’s case relies on interpreting information through a particular lens when there are other ways of looking at the evidence.
He said confidential informants were the ones who told investigators why he was going to Yemen. And there is the possibility that they could be lying or have other motivations.
He said the explosive was used for model rocketry or other hobbyist items — that it wasn’t meant to be used for weapons.
He also noted there should be reasonable conditions, including surrendering passports or having electronic home monitoring.
He explained that Ellaboudy has an adult daughter with disabilities, and a home and other ties to the Tri-Cities. He also said that as a U.S. Navy veteran he had to have a good moral character to stay in the role.
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