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OPPOSITION to Second EX PARTE APPLICATION to Continue Trial Date from 05/04/2021 to… — USA v. Ayvazyan et al (Dkt. 267)
Summary
Filed April 8, 2021 as Document 267 in Case 2:20-cr-00579-SVW (C.D. Cal.), before Hon. Stephen V. Wilson, this is the defendants' opposition to the government's ex parte application for a continuance and exclusion of time (Dkt. 264). The defendants argue the government sought a sixteen-week continuance days after saying it was ready for trial and call this gamesmanship. They ask the Court to order the government to identify its exhibits and witnesses by April 15, 2021 and, if a continuance is needed because of jury summonses, to set a trial date no later than necessary, noting they had suggested June 15, 2021. They also ask the Court to issue a Rule 48(b) warning, saying the Court has authority to dismiss the indictment. These are the defendants' characterizations.
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Record facts
| Court | U.S. District Court for the Central District of California |
|---|---|
| Filed | 2021-04-08 |
Cite this document
“OPPOSITION to Second EX PARTE APPLICATION to Continue Trial Date from 05/04/2021 to… — USA v. Ayvazyan et al (Dkt. 267).”
U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, No. 2:20-cr-00579-SVW, Doc. 267, filed 2021-04-08. Archived at Pandemic Darlings, https://pandemicdarlings.com/court-filings/full-docket-arman-hayrapetyan-cacd-813904/2021-04-08-gov-uscourts-cacd-813904-267-0-doc-267/
, SHA-256 af6857723d0201963247d45be54b395fbab2bbf84e9201186f54dfafa0ca408d.Full text
DEFENDANTS’ OPPOSITION TO GOVERNMENT’S EX PARTE APPLICATION
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Ashwin J. Ram (SBN 227513)
aram@steptoe.com
Michael A. Keough (SBN 327037)
mkeough@steptoe.com
Nicholas P. Silverman (pro hac vice)
nsilverman@steptoe.com
STEPTOE & JOHNSON LLP
633 West Fifth Street, Suite 1900
Los Angeles, CA 90071
Telephone: (213) 439-9400
Facsimile: (213) 439-9599
Counsel for Defendant Richard Ayvazyan
Fred G. Minassian (SBN 170974)
fgminassian@yahoo.com
LAW OFFICES OF FRED G.
MINASSIAN, INC.
101 N. Brand Blvd., Suite 1970
Glendale, CA 91203
Telephone: (818) 240-2444
Counsel for Defendant Tamara Dadyan
John L. Littrell (SBN 221601)
jlittrell@bklwlaw.com
Ryan V. Fraser (SBN 272196)
rfraser@bklwlaw.com
BIENERT KATZMAN LITTRELL
WILLIAMS, LLP
601 W. 5th Street, Suite 720
Los Angeles, CA 90071
Telephone: (213) 528-3400
Facsimile: (949) 369-3701
Counsel for Defendant Marietta Terabelian
Thomas A. Mesereau, Jr. (SBN 91182)
mesereau@mesereaulaw.com
Jennifer J. Wirsching (SBN 263141)
wirschinglaw@outlook.com
MESEREAU LAW GROUP, P.C.
10100 Santa Monica Blvd. Suite 300
Los Angeles, CA 90067
Telephone: (310) 561-9960
Counsel for Defendant Artur Ayvazyan
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
CENTRAL DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
v.
RICHARD AYVAZYAN,
et al.,
Defendants.
Case No. 20-cr-579 (SVW)
DEFENDANTS’ OPPOSITION
TO GOVERNMENT’S EX
PARTE APPLICATION FOR
CONTINUANCE AND
EXCLUSION OF TIME (DKT.
264)
Hon. Stephen V. Wilson
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DEFENDANTS’ OPPOSITION TO GOVERNMENT’S EX PARTE APPLICATION
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The government’s gamesmanship knows no bounds. Days after being taken to
task for their attempted end-run around the Court’s protective order and discovery
cutoff, the government claimed it was ready to proceed to trial.1 But the next day, the
government made an about-face and filed the present application for a sixteen-week
continuance of the trial date that it could strategically leverage. The government
indicted this case nearly six months ago and has already enjoyed the benefit of one
lengthy continuance over the objection of all defendants. There is no reason why the
government should be allowed to reap a windfall while the Central District works to
resume operations with the end of the pandemic in sight. Accordingly, the defendants
make two requests:
First, the government should be required to identify the exhibits and witnesses it
will use in its case-in-chief no later than April 15, 2021, approximately three weeks
before the current trial date. The government has pointed to no reason why the trial
should be delayed except for the delay in sending jury summonses as the Central
District reopens after the pandemic, and the government should not receive a windfall
based on a pandemic-related delay. Such an order would be consistent with the March
15, 2021 discovery cutoff that this Court has already imposed, and would mirror the
relief granted by Judge Walter in United States v. Cai, No. 19-cr-761 (C.D. Cal.).
Second, to the extent a continuance is necessary due to a delay in sending jury
summonses, the Court should enforce the defendants’ right to a speedy trial and set a
trial date no later than is necessary to seat a jury. Within hours of the government
indicating it was ready for trial subject only to the issuance of jury summonses,
defendants suggested June 15, 2021 as a trial date in the event a continuance was
necessary. The government then abandoned all pretense of being “ready for trial,” and
sought a sixteen-week continuance, with absolutely no explanation for why an
additional two-month delay was necessary and no explanation for why it ignored the
1 See Declaration of Ashwin J. Ram, dated April 8, 2021, Ex. 1.
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defendants’ request to identify exhibits and witnesses. The government’s unjustified
request for a second lengthy continuance, especially where, as here, the defendants are
all subject to home confinement and one defendant is in custody awaiting trial is
particularly troubling. The parties should be prepared to go to trial as soon as a jury can
be seated, not months later.
Rather than grant yet another continuance, the Court should dismiss the
indictment. The government indicted this case and sought to restrict the liberty of
individual citizens despite any intent to provide those individuals with a speedy trial to
clear their names. The government’s rush to indict when it was not capable of going to
trial and its consequent obstinance at every turn in providing its trial materials should
not be countenanced and merits dismissal rather than a continuance. If the Court does
grant a continuance, however, the court should set the case for trial no later than June
15, 2021, and should reject the requested exclusion of time under the Speedy Trial Act.
I.
THE COURT SHOULD ORDER THE GOVERNMENT TO DISCLOSE
ITS TRIAL EXHIBITS AND WITNESS LIST ON APRIL 15, 2021,
CONSISTENT WITH THE CURRENT TRIAL DATE
Regardless of whether the Court grants a second continuance over the objection
of all defendants, the Court should order the government to identify its witnesses and
trial exhibits by April 15, 2021—three weeks before the trial date chosen by the
government in its first request for a continuance and over one week after the
government stated it was ready to proceed to trial. There is no excuse for the
government to continue to withhold this information from the defense after the
government has had months to prepare for trial.
The government chose to file a criminal indictment in the midst of a pandemic,
then requested that the defendants be held without bail, ultimately securing orders that
place the applicable defendants under house arrest until trial. Beginning within twenty-
four hours of the November 17 indictment, each defendant requested that the
government identify its trial exhibits and witnesses so that they could prepare for trial.
Dkt. 63-3 § III ¶ 13; id. § VII. The government summarily refused and ignored each
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request for exhibits for over four weeks. See Dkt. 96 at 7 (summarizing the requests
and the government’s refusal to engage). Finally, at the last moment, the government
(moving ex parte despite the seven-week lead time it argues is required to seat a jury)
made its first request for a continuance without producing discovery. Dkt. 94. The
government specifically requested that trial be set for May 4, 2021.
The defendants opposed the government’s request because, while the
government may have filed charges in a district where criminal trials were “suspended
indefinitely,” Dkt. 73 at 2, the government is not entitled to use COVID-19 “to gain a
windfall by obtaining additional post-indictment investigation time and taking a
lackadaisical approach to its discovery obligations.” Dkt. 96 at 10. The defendants
pointed to United States v. Cai, 19-cr-761 (JFW) (C.D. Cal.), where the government
sought to use COVID-19 to continue not just the trial date but also the deadlines for
identifying exhibits and witnesses because the government wanted to allow for its
“understanding of the evidence … to change, which could significantly alter the
presentation of evidence at trial and thus the exhibits that are presented.” Dkt. 96 at 9
(quoting Gov’t’s Ex Parte App’n to Continue at 16, Cai, Dkt. 134). The Cai court
disagreed, holding that the government could not “l[ie] in wait for the continuance of
trial” it expected and use that as an excuse not to produce its trial exhibits and witness
lists. Dkt. 96 at 10 (quoting Hr’g Tr. at 21, Cai, Dkt. 190). The Cai court therefore
continued the trial date to March 2021 but ordered the government to produce all
exhibits and witness lists by August 2020. Id. (citing Hr’g Tr. at 32, Cai, Dkt. 190).
On December 22, 2020, the Court ruled on this dispute by granting the
government’s request for a May 4, 2021 trial date but ordering the government “to
produce all outstanding discovery, including documentary and physical evidence it
intends to rely on in its case-in-chief” by March 15, 2021.” Dkt. 105 (“Any evidence
produced after March 15, 2021, will not be admitted absent extraordinary
circumstances.”). The Court’s Order made clear that rather than using COVID-19 as an
excuse to indict now and investigate later, the government should expeditiously
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produce the discovery needed for the defendants to prepare for trial.2
The fundamental point of Cai and this Court’s December 22, 2020 Order
remains the same. COVID-19 may lead to continuances resulting in extended pretrial
house arrest periods and delayed trials, but the government is not entitled to use those
continuances to secure a tactical advantage by withholding discovery, witness lists, and
exhibit lists. The only thing that has changed since December is that the government
has had more than three additional months to attempt to complete its investigation, and
it can no longer argue that this case “stands in stark contrast” to Cai because “in Cai,
the government had months to complete the production of discovery and prepare its
pretrial filings….” Dkt. 99-2 at 8. The government has had months to prepare for trial,
it has indicated that it is prepared now, and it has no reason to continue to withhold
information from the defendants.
II.
THE COURT SHOULD ISSUE A RULE 48(B) WARNING THAT THE
GOVERNMENT CANNOT CONTINUE TO SEEK CONTINUANCES OF
A CASE IT CHOSE TO INDICT
The government indicted this case before it was ready, has already violated the
Court’s discovery order, Dkt. 248, at 3–7, and is now desperately scrambling to delay
the trial for as long as it thinks it can ask with a straight face. Under these
circumstances, the Court has the authority to dismiss. See id. at 7–9; Fed. R. Crim. P.
48(b)(1), (3) (providing the Court may dismiss if “unnecessary delay occurs in”
indicting or “bringing a defendant to trial”); Fed. R. Crim. P. 48 advisory committee’s
note (2002) (“Rule 48(b), of course, operates independently from the [Speedy Trial]
Act.”); United States v. Hattrup, 763 F.2d 376, 377 (9th Cir. 1985) (“It is within the
2 The identification of trial exhibits and witnesses is necessary to prepare for trial because the
government keeps changing the scope of its alleged crime. The government has produced a mountain
of hundreds of thousands pages of discovery, within which it claims are hundreds of loans that are
somehow part of a single conspiracy and yet the government claims its case will last less than two
weeks. The effect of the government’s tactics is that the defendants are left without a clear picture of
what defines the alleged conspiracy’s scope and which actions were allegedly unlawful. Trial
exhibits and witnesses—if narrowly tailored consistent with the government’s two-week estimate—
should help provide some notice of the government’s allegations that the defendants must prepare to
face.
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trial court’s inherent power under Rule 48(b) to dismiss a case with prejudice for
prosecutorial delay not amounting to a Sixth Amendment violation.”). Even if the
Court does not dismiss at this time, it should at least warn the government that it faces
the possibility of dismissal with prejudice as a sanction for any further unreasonable
delay. In the Ninth Circuit, forewarning is a requirement for dismissal with prejudice
under Rule 48(b). United States v. Huntley, 976 F.2d 1287, 1291 (9th Cir. 1992).
III.
THE COURT SHOULD DELAY THE TRIAL ONLY AS LONG AS
NECESSARY TO SEAT A JURY
The government’s argument for a continuance is entirely based on the delay in
issuing jury summonses as the Central District emerges from the COVID-19
pandemic.3 The government claims that it is otherwise ready to go to trial as soon as
possible, and the clerk of court estimates that trials may begin in this District by June 1,
2021. This renders the government’s request for a sixteen-week continuance baffling.
The clerk of court has already begun issuing jury summonses for the Central
District’s Southern Division, and estimates that it will begin issuing summonses for the
other divisions by April 12, 2021.4 The clerk of court estimates that trials can resume
seven weeks after the summonses are sent, or approximately June 1, 2021.5 In response
to the government’s claim that it was ready for trial, the defendants objected to any
continuance, while alternatively proposing a June 15, 2021 trial date, which would
allow the matter to proceed to trial as soon as juries could be seated subject to the
District’s General Orders (while factoring in possible delay in the clerk of court’s
proposed schedule for sending out summonses). The government’s application does
not address the defendants’ proposed trial date. Nor does the government explain why
3 The government half-heartedly claims that this case is a “complex” one that requires additional
delay, but has repeatedly represented to the Court in its previous filings that its alleged scheme is
“simple and straightforward,” Dkt. 188 at 13, 16, 23; Dkt. 207 at 7, and that trial will take less than
two weeks. Regardless of whether these are misrepresentations, the government claims that it is ready
to go to trial.
4 See https://www.cacd.uscourts.gov/news/phased-reopening-court.
5 Id.
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an additional ten weeks are necessary between June 15 and the government’s proposed
trial date of August 23, 2021. Instead, the government relies on year-old information
regarding the effect of the pandemic on the Central District’s operations to justify yet
another continuance of the trial date.
Ayvazyan is well aware of the COVID-19 pandemic. He and his wife suffered
from symptomatic bouts of COVID-19 as a result of government-requested detention.
But the government’s application pays short shrift to the rapidly improving conditions
in California that are allowing the clerk of court to begin issuing jury summonses again
in the first place. At the time of this filing, 43% of Californians over the age of 16 have
already received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, with a similar percentage of
Los Angeles County residents receiving a vaccine.6 This week, Governor Gavin
Newsom announced that California’s positivity rate for new virus cases was the lowest
of any state in the nation and that he expected the state to abandon its tiered reopening
system in favor of a full reopening by June 15, 2021.7 After a year of a devasting
pandemic, there is every reason to believe that the normal functions of society—
including jury trials—can resume on the clerk of court’s projected schedule. A June 15,
2021 trial date accommodates the need for the clerk to issue jury summonses while
granting defendants the ability to clear their names at trial.
More fundamentally, the government’s requested trial date violates the original
defendants’ right to a speedy trial. The government has already taken advantage of the
COVID-19 pandemic to push their trial date far past the 70 days allowed under 18
U.S.C. § 3161. The original defendants were indicted on November 17, 2020, and all
four had been arraigned in the Central District of California and pleaded not guilty by
December 4, 2020. In compliance with 18 U.S.C. § 3161(a), the case was “set … for
trial on a date certain,” specifically, January 12, 2021.
6 See https://abc7news.com/covid-vaccine-california-tracker-ca-newsom-update/9567632/
7 See, e.g., https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/California-has-lowest-COVID-19-positivity-rate-
in-16082922.php
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In December, over the defendants’ objections, the government received a
pandemic-related continuance that resulted in the current trial date of May 4, 2021.
Now, despite acknowledging that juries will be seated by June and claiming that they
are ready for trial, the government is requesting a late August trial. The defendants are
entitled by the Speedy Trial Act and Sixth Amendment to a speedy trial. 8 The
government has not offered a single justification for pushing the trial into late August.
Given that the government was already granted a pandemic-related extension, and jury
trials can clearly proceed in this district in early June (they should already be taking
place), the Court should uphold the defendants’ Sixth Amendment rights by denying
any continuance. If a continuance is granted over our objections, trial at a minimum
should be scheduled for no later than June 15, 2021.
IV.
CONCLUSION
For the above reasons, the Court should deny the government’s ex parte
application and order the government to identify the exhibits and witnesses for its case-
in-chief no later than April 15, 2021. If the Court grants the continuance despite our
objections, then, at a minimum, the Court should set the matter for trial no later than
June 15, 2021.
//
//
//
//
//
8 The government acknowledges that defendant Hayrapetyan is in custody, and therefore not subject to
the extended 180-day speedy trial clock set by the Judicial Council of the Ninth Circuit. But the
government failed to grapple with that fact when setting an August trial date, which is more than two
months after Hayrapetyan’s 70-day trial clock will run. Both the Supreme Court and this Circuit have
held that codefendants are subject to the same speedy trial clock, which runs from the date the last
codefendant is indicted or arraigned. See Henderson v. United States, 476 U.S. 321, 323 n. 2 (1986);
United States v. Morales, 875 F.2d 775, 776 (9th Cir. 1989). The government should be held to this
rule, and all defendants should be subject to the same speedy trial clock: the 70-day trial clock of
Hayrapetyan.
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Dated: April 8, 2021
Respectfully submitted,
STEPTOE & JOHNSON LLP
/s/ Ashwin J. Ram
Ashwin J. Ram (SBN 227513)
aram@steptoe.com
STEPTOE & JOHNSON LLP
633 West Fifth Street, Suite 1900
Los Angeles, CA 90071
Telephone: (213) 439-9400
Facsimile: (213) 439-9599
Michael A. Keough (SBN 327037)
mkeough@steptoe.com
One Market Plaza
Spear Tower, Suite 3900
San Francisco, CA 94105
Telephone: (415) 365-6700
Facsimile: (415) 365-6699
Nicholas P. Silverman (pro hac vice)
nsilverman@steptoe.com
1330 Connecticut Avenue, N.W.
Washington D.C., 20036
Telephone: (202) 429-8096
Facsimile: (202) 329-3902
Counsel for Defendant Richard Ayvazyan
BIENERT KATZMAN LITTRELL
WILLIAMS, LLP
/s/ John L. Littrell
John L. Littrell (SBN 221601)
jlittrell@bklwlaw.com
Ryan V. Fraser (SBN 272196)
rfraser@bklwlaw.com
BIENERT KATZMAN LITTRELL
WILLIAMS, LLP
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601 W. 5th Street, Suite 720
Los Angeles, CA 90071
Telephone: (213) 528-3400
Facsimile: (949) 369-3701
Counsel for Defendant
Marietta Terabelian
LAW OFFICES OF FRED G.
MINASSIAN, INC.
/s/ Fred G. Minassian
Fred G. Minassian (SBN 170974)
fgminassian@yahoo.com
LAW OFFICES OF FRED G.
MINASSIAN, INC.
101 N. Brand Blvd., Suite 1970
Glendale, CA 91203
Telephone: (818) 240-2444
Counsel for Defendant Tamara Dadyan
MESEREAU LAW GROUP, P.C.
/s/ Thomas A. Mesereau
Thomas A. Mesereau, Jr. (SBN 91182)
mesereau@mesereaulaw.com
MESEREAU LAW GROUP, P.C.
10100 Santa Monica Blvd. Suite 300
Los Angeles, CA 90067
Telephone: (310) 561-9960
/s/ Jennifer J. Wirsching
Jennifer J. Wirsching (SBN 263141)
wirschinglaw@outlook.com
1935 Alpha Rd. 216
Glendale, CA 91208
Telephone: (424) 901-9280
Counsel for Defendant Artur Ayvazyan
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SIGNATURE ATTESTATION
Pursuant to Local Rule 5-4.3.4(a)(i), the filer attests that all signatories listed, and
on whose behalf the filing is submitted, concur in the filing’s content and have
authorized the filing.
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