A former Armenian consul, a former consular employee and an immigration attorney have been arrested after a two-year investigation into an alleged document scam aimed at helping immigrants avoid deportation, officials said on Tuesday.
Norair Ghalumian, who served as consul in Los Angeles from 1999 to 2003, and four other people are accused of obtaining and selling letters to immigrants facing deportation to help block their removal to Armenia, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials said.
The letters stated that Armenia would not issue a travel document for the immigrants, essentially preventing the US government from sending them to Armenia, the officials said in a written statement.
ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice said the defendants sold at least two dozen letters and acted independently of each other. She said officials continue to investigate the letters, which were sold for as much as US$35,000 each.
Ghalumian, 52, of Burbank, and the other defendants are charged with obstructing ICE proceedings, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison, the statement said. They were scheduled to appear in federal court in Los Angeles on Tuesday afternoon.
The other defendants are Hakop Hovanesyan, 54, of Glendale, a former consular employee; Margarita Mkrtchyan, 41, of Glendale, an immigration attorney; Oganes Nardos, 36, of Valencia; and Elvis Madatyan, 47, of Glendale.
Mkrtchyan, Hovanesyan, Ghalumian and Madatyan were released on bail. Nardos’ hearing was extended until Aug. 7, said Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the US attorney’s office.
Hovanesyan’s attorney Mark Werksman said the charges against his client were unfounded and would be challenged in court. Mkrtchyan’s attorney Shepard Kopp declined to discuss details of the case, but said his client says she’s innocent.
Nardos’ wife deferred to him for comment.
Court papers describe how the defendants told undercover agents they could buy a so-called “letter of refusal” denying a deportee’s return to Armenia.
The agents paid the contacts and were promised letters, which in some cases were arranged by an unnamed contact in Armenia, a criminal complaint said. In other cases, an official who worked at the consulate in Los Angeles between 2004 and last year made the arrangements.
CONDITIONS: The Russian president said a deal that was scuppered by ‘elites’ in the US and Europe should be revived, as Ukraine was generally satisfied with it Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday said that he was ready for talks with Ukraine, after having previously rebuffed the idea of negotiations while Kyiv’s offensive into the Kursk region was ongoing. Ukraine last month launched a cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, sending thousands of troops across the border and seizing several villages. Putin said shortly after there could be no talk of negotiations. Speaking at a question and answer session at Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin said that Russia was ready for talks, but on the basis of an aborted deal between Moscow’s and Kyiv’s negotiators reached in Istanbul, Turkey,
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
A French woman whose husband has admitted to enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her while she was drugged on Thursday told his trial that police had saved her life by uncovering the crimes. “The police saved my life by investigating Mister Pelicot’s computer,” Gisele Pelicot told the court in the southern city of Avignon, referring to her husband — one of 51 of her alleged abusers on trial — by only his surname. Speaking for the first time since the extraordinary trial began on Monday, Gisele Pelicot, now 71, revealed her emotion in almost 90 minutes of testimony, recounting her mysterious
RSS