Tehran, Iran ? A jailed Iranian-American academic was charged Monday with setting up a network to overthrow the Islamic establishment, the government announced.

Haleh Esfandiari, director of the Middle East Program at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, has been held at Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison since early May.

An Intelligence Ministry statement read on state TV said she and the Wilson Center were conspiring to topple the government by setting up a network “against the sovereignty of the country.”

“This is an American designed model with an attractive appearance that seeks the soft-toppling of the country,” the ministry said.

Esfandiari’s husband, Shaul Bakhash, said an Intelligence Ministry statement that he received did not indicate that his wife had been formally charged.

In detailing the allegation against Esfandiari for the first time, however, the Intelligence Ministry was effectively charging her.

Bakhash also denied the allegations against his wife.

“Any implication that my wife was involved in a plan in a revolution – soft or otherwise – is totally without foundation,” he said in a telephone interview from his home in Maryland.

Sharon McCarter, a spokeswoman for the Wilson Center, also called Iran’s claims untrue.

Esfandiari came to Iran in December to visit her 93-year-old mother. Later that month, she was prevented from leaving the country when three masked men with knives stole her luggage and passport as she headed to the airport, according to the Wilson Center. In the weeks before her arrest, she was called in for questioning daily on her activities, the center said.

Iran has stepped up accusations that the United States trying to use internal critics to destabilize the government. Tensions have mounted between the two countries over Iran’s nuclear program and U.S. allegations that the Iranians have been supporting armed groups in Iraq.