Court filing
Opposition to Ex Parte Application for Order for Protective Order — USA v. Ayvazyan et al. (Dkt. 74, C.D. Cal.)
Filed December 9, 2020 in USA v. Ayvazyan et al.; one of 233 filings from this case.
Record facts
| Court | U.S. District Court for the Central District of California |
|---|---|
| Filed | 2020-12-09 |
U.S. District Court for the Central District of California · No. 2:20-cr-00579-SVW · Doc. 74 · 2020-12-09 · Docket on CourtListener
Full text
OPPOSITION TO GOVERNMENT’S EX PARTE APPLICATION
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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
[Additional Counsel Listed on Next Page]
Counsel for Defendant Richard Ayvazyan
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
CENTRAL DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff,
v.
RICHARD AYVAZYAN,
MARIETTA TERABELIAN,
ARTUR AYVAZYAN,
TAMARA DADYAN,
Defendants.
Case No. 20-CR-00579-SVW
OPPOSITION TO
GOVERNMENT’S EX PARTE
APPLICATION FOR A
PROTECTIVE ORDER
REGARDING DISCOVERY
CONTAINING PERSONAL
IDENTIFYING INFORMATION,
ACCESS DEVICE MATERIALS,
AND PRIVACY ACT
INFORMATION
Hon. Stephen V. Wilson
Case 2:20-cr-00579-SVW Document 74 Filed 12/09/20 Page 1 of 14 Page ID #:438
OPPOSITION TO GOVERNMENT’S EX PARTE APPLICATION
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Michael A. Keough (SBN 327037)
mkeough@steptoe.com
STEPTOE & JOHNSON LLP
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
STEPTOE & JOHNSON LLP
1330 Connecticut Avenue, N.W.
Washington D.C., 20036
Telephone: (202) 429-8096
Facsimile: (202) 429-3902
Counsel for Defendant Richard Ayvazyan
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Defendant Richard Ayvazyan, through undersigned counsel, opposes the
government’s ex parte application (Dkt. 65) and responds as follows:
I.
THE COURT SHOULD DENY THE GOVERNMENT’S APPLICATION
AND GRANT THE DEFENDANT’S APPLICATION FOR DISCOVERY
BECAUSE THE GOVERNMENT HAS NOT ESTABLISHED GOOD
CAUSE OR NARROWLY TAILORED ITS PROPOSED RELIEF
The Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, the Federal Rules of
Criminal Procedure, case law, and ethical rules entitle Defendant Richard Ayvazyan to
receive discovery so that he can investigate the allegations against him and prepare for
his January 12, 2021 trial. The government’s attempt to hold all of this discovery
hostage violates each of these entitlements and is unsupported by law.
“Protective orders are the exception, not the rule, and appropriate reasons must
be given for their entry.” United States v. Stone, No. 10-cr-20123, 2012 WL 137746, at
*3 (E.D. Mich. Jan. 18, 2012) (denying motion for protective order “to protect the
privacy and security interests of government witnesses” because “[t]he government has
not met its burden to show disclosure will cause a clearly defined and serious injury”).
Where, as here, the government’s proposed protective order would restrict a defendant
from possessing any of the discovery to investigate the allegations against him and
prepare for trial, the government bears a heavy burden to show good cause to believe
disclosure of discovery would result in a clearly defined and serious injury, and that the
restrictions are narrowly tailored to prevent overburdening a defendant’s constitutional
rights. Here, the government has (A) failed to satisfy show good cause to believe a
particular injury would result from disclosure; (B) misrepresented Ayvazyan’s
conditions of release to the Court about in an attempt to manufacture good cause; and
(C) failed to engage in any tailoring or balancing at all. Accordingly, the government’s
ex parte application (Dkt. 65) should be denied and the defendant’s ex parte application
(Dkt. 63) should be granted.
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A.
The Government Fails to Show Good Cause to Believe Disclosure
Would Result in a Clearly Defined and Serious Injury
It is the government’s burden to show, “with specificity,” good cause to believe
certain disclosures will cause “clearly defined and serious injury.” United States v.
Arredondo, No. 12-cr-1055, 2012 WL 1946955, at *1 (D. Ariz. May 30, 2012) (quoting
United States v. Wecht, 484 F.3d 194, 211 (3d Cir. 2007)). The government’s
application fails to meet this burden. Instead of narrowing in on specific harm, the
government’s application argues broadly1 that somewhere within the sea of discovery
materials there exist unspecified documents that, if turned over to a defendant, could
“risk[] the privacy and security of the information’s [unspecified] owners.” Dkt. 65 ¶ 2.
But “[b]road allegations of harm, unsubstantiated by specific examples or articulated
reasoning, do not support a good cause showing.” United States v. Calderon, 14-cr-
103-CAS, 2014 WL 1401941, at *3 (C.D. Cal. Apr. 8, 2014) (quoting Arredondo and
Wecht and denying government application for protective order except as to agreed-
upon matters and grand jury proceedings). The government’s application has done just
that—it is devoid of specific examples of the documents underpinning its concern, the
specific people that might be harmed, or the specific way in which these materials
could be misused. This is not enough.
Setting aside the lack of a specific alleged harm, the government also fails to
provide good cause to believe that the generalized and speculative harms to privacy or
safety referenced in Dkt. 65 will occur. The government argues that good cause exists
“due to the nature of the allegations against defendant R. Ayvazyan.” Dkt. 65 ¶ 15.
But many defendants are accused of fraud or identity theft, and yet that accusation is
1 The government’s application even broadens the proposed risk of harm by claiming that this
“may expose” any third-party member of the general public to “potential safety risks.” Dkt.
65 ¶ 2. The accusation that Ayvazyan represents a threat to public safety has no basis in fact.
Ayvazyan respectfully refers the Court to page 10 of his Application (Dkt. 63), which explains
that Ayvazyan has no violent history, is a respected businessman, and has been a long-time
member of the local Armenian community. He is not a safety risk to anyone.
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not sufficient cause to justify tying their hands behind their back during trial
preparation. See Dkt. 63 at 4 (providing eight examples of recent fraud and identity
theft cases in which the same government counsel appearing in the present case or his
co-counsel stipulated that such restrictions were not necessary). The government
argues that Ayvazyan’s prior conviction standing alone increases the risk of danger to
public (Dkt. 65 at 2). But the government does not identify (because it cannot) what
about this conviction makes him a danger to others—especially where, as here,
Ayvazyan is subject to conditions of supervised release that include home detention,
location monitoring, and prohibit him from accessing the bank accounts of others. The
fact that Ayvazyan plead guilty to a non-violent charge a decade ago is not probative of
whether he presents a safety risk today. See Vincent v. Mendoza-Powers, No. 06-cv-
5482, 2010 WL 143455, at *17 (C.D. Cal. Jan. 6, 2010) (noting that a prior non-violent
conviction was not “not a valid indicator of whether he is a danger to the public”).
Ayvazyan, if anything, presents a lower risk of harm than similarly situated
defendants. He is physically incapable of applying for any Paycheck Protection
Program loans because the program is no longer open to new applications.2 Any
similar federal program fraud would be immediately spotted by the government or
Probation given that Ayvazyan is under pretrial supervision. Ayvazyan has compliantly
submitted bank account information and statements to probation upon request and he
will continue to do so. Moreover, Ayvazyan would be reviewing discovery through
Steptoe’s eDiscovery system, which will track every document he views. It would be
fundamentally illogical for Ayvazyan to misuse data or information when he knows that
there will be an easily collectible record of his access.
2 See, e.g., James T. Madore, $134B in Untapped Loan Guarantees Remain as PPP
Applications End, Newsday (Aug. 12, 2020), https://www.newsday.com/business/coronavirus/
ppp-paycheck-loans-sba-businesses-1.48052017 (noting that the PPP program closed for new
loan applications on August 8, 2020).
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The government’s argument to the contrary is without merit. The only
distinction the government draws is that, in 2012, Ayvazyan pleaded guilty to
misrepresenting his income to obtain a loan and successfully completed his sentence of
probation without incident. Dkt. 65 ¶ 15. Ayvazyan’s offense did not involve the
misuse of a third party’s private information or, for that matter, any conduct that
inflicted harm on a third party. It provides no reason to believe that he would do so
now.3
B.
The Government Misrepresents Ayvazyan’s Pretrial Conditions in an
Attempt to Manufacture Good Cause
Understanding that it cannot show good cause, the government inexplicably
claims that another court has made findings precluding Ayvazyan from receiving
discovery by prohibiting him from “possessing ‘any identification, mail matter, access
devices, or any identification-related material other than in [their] own legal or true
name[s].” Dkt. 65 ¶ 7 (citing Dkt. 5). The government is wrong.
The cited language is not part of Richard Ayvazyan’s conditions of release.
Ayvazyan’s conditions of release prohibit only accessing bank accounts belonging to
others, a condition he has followed and will continue to follow. See Dkt. 47, 48
(conditions of release for Ayvazyan). The document the government cites is the
conditions of release for co-defendant Artur Ayvazyan, not Richard. But even
assuming arguendo that the government was not mistaken, and Artur’s conditions of
release applied to all defendants, those conditions do not expressly prohibit possession
of identification-related materials produced by the government for the purpose of
preparing for trial. Indeed, such an outcome—setting a condition of release that is then
3 The government also claims there may exist information protected by the Privacy Act. The
government fails to describe that information with sufficient particularity much less the harm
that disclosure would cause. Any information provided to the government for use in law
enforcement activity pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 552a(b)(7), however, would necessarily be
producible in discovery because discovery would be a core part of that law enforcement
activity for which the information was provided.
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used to deny the defendant access to mandatory pre-trial discovery—would violate the
Sixth Amendment rights afforded to the defendant.
C.
Any Good Cause Would Be Insufficient to Justify the Requested
Protective Order
The government’s proposed protective order is not limited to personal, private
information that, if disclosed, would subject its owner to a specific injury. Instead, the
government wishes to prevent Ayvazyan from possessing, controlling, or even taking
notes on any document that contains “a name” or any other information that could
conceivably be used to identify a person such as a business or email address. Dkt. 65
¶ 13.h, .i, .k (incorporating ¶ 13.a, .c). In a case involving allegedly fraudulent loan
applications, such a broad brushstroke would include even the very documents that the
government will have to present at trial to meet its burden of proof (access to which
would be a critical part of the defendant’s preparation for trial). The government
defines “Confidential Information” so broadly that it applies to every document, then
applies onerous strictures to any and all Confidential Information. Good cause to redact
one subset of documents “does not [provide] good cause to restrict the entirety of
discovery with an overbroad protective order.” United States v. Cross, No. 20-cr-9,
2020 WL 2542818, at *3 (E.D. Wisc. May 19, 2020). This is the equivalent to
indiscriminately shutting down the main water valve to an office building under the
belief that a single sink might flood. The reasonable solution is to turn off the water to
that sink.4 The government insists on going beyond the reasonable solution and
entering what is, in effect, a blanket order shutting off the main water valve and
4 “Turning off the water to that sink” is what Ayvazyan proposed immediately upon learning
that the government was unwilling to abide by the protective orders it had agreed to in similar
cases: produce all discovery regarding Ayvazyan and his alleged co-conspirators, and propose
narrowly tailored redactions necessary to protect Fed. R. Civ. P. 5.2 information belonging to
the alleged identity theft victim M.Z. See Dkt. 63-5 at 1-2. The government refused to
discuss the proposal.
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denying the defendant the right to search through discovery to investigate the
allegations against him and prepare for his case.
In the Ninth Circuit, to prevent access to unfiled discovery materials, “[a] party
asserting good cause bears the burden, for each particular document it seeks to protect,
of showing that specific prejudice or harm will result if no protective order is granted.”
Dkt. 63 at 9 (citing Arredondo, 2012 WL 1946955, at *1 (quoting Foltz v. State Farm
Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 331 F.3d 1122, 1130 (9th Cir. 2003))); see also Beckman Indus. v.
Int’l Ins. Co., 966 F.2d 470, 476 (9th Cir. 1992). Assuming arguendo that the
government demonstrated good cause for a protective order (it has not), this would not
justify the blanket protective order requested by the government.
This kind of blanket order, while “useful and expeditious in large scale litigation
… can be overbroad and unnecessary” in criminal cases. United States v. Williams, No.
No. 15-cr-10145, 2015 WL 5923551, at *3 (D. Mass. Oct. 9, 2015) (quoting United
States v. Smith, 985 F. Supp. 2d 506, 545 (S.D.N.Y. 2013)). It is therefore necessary
that “in determining the appropriate level of protection,” the court “‘ensure[s] that a
protective order is no broader than is necessary to serve the intended purposes.’” Id.;
see also Cross, 2020 WL 2542818, at *3 (vacating protective order as “overbroad”
because the government failed to show that the defendant was a threat to the particular
witness being protected). The government’s core response is that its proposed
protective order is “necessary” to produce any discovery. Dkt. 65 at 2. The
government does not cite any legal authority for this remarkable proposition because
there is none. There is no conceivable need to limit Ayvazyan’s access to the vast
majority of the documents at issue in this case including, for example, Ayvazyan’s own
escrow documents (containing names and contact information) or the very loan
applications (containing names and business information) for which Ayvazyan will be
tried. Ayvazyan previous demonstrated the existence of narrower orders that would
protect the government’s interests in Dkt. 63-2 and Dkt. 63-5. The government’s
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failure to follow these examples to ensure that its proposed order is as narrow as
possible is fatal to its application.
After ensuring the order is as narrow as possible to achieve a government
interest, that purported interest must be balanced against Ayvazyan’s constitutional
right to investigate the allegations against him. See United States v. W.R. Grace, 401 F.
Supp. 2d 1093, 1101 (D. Mont. 2005) (holding that due process required that
defendants have an opportunity to inspect key records “without the arbitrary removal of
portions of the records by the prosecution”); Williams, 2015 WL 5923551, at *4
(“Balancing all of the concerns raised by the government and the defendants, the
restrictions [proposed by the government] are overly burdensome and … broader than
necessary in light of the showing made by the government relative to witness
intimidation and retaliation.”). The government’s proposal to withhold everything from
Ayvazyan makes no attempt to balance anything.
The government’s proposed order would use a narrow fear to justify restrictions
on every document in discovery. A drastic measure like that is grossly overbroad. The
Court should therefore enter Ayvazyan’s proposed order granting discovery (Dkt. 63-1)
and direct the government to produce discovery.
II.
IN THE ALTERNATIVE, THE COURT SHOULD ENTER AYVAZYAN’S
PROPOSED PROTECTIVE ORDER (DKT. 63-2)
Ayvazyan’s Proposed Protective Order (filed as Dkt. 63-2) would sufficiently
protect any of the government’s potential interests for the reasons stated in Section III.B
of Ayvazyan’s Application for Discovery (Dkt. 63). The proposed order follows the
precedent established by Judge Hatter in a recent case in this District, United States v.
Estopare, No. 20-cr-79 (TJH), Dkt. 110 (C.D. Cal. May 21, 2020); id. Dkt. 179 (C.D.
Cal. Oct. 20, 2020). See Dkt. 63 § 3.B.
Critically, the Estopare Order would balance the competing interests by serving
as “a substantial safeguard against unauthorized disclosure” while ensuring that
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Ayvazyan can investigate the allegations against him and prepare for trial. See Dkt. 63
at 13-14 (quoting United States v. W.R. Grace, 401 F. Supp. 2d 1093, 1101 (D. Mont.
2005)); United States v. Burgess, No. 18-cr-373, 2018 WL 11211501, at *3 (S.D.N.Y.
Sept. 21, 2018) (holding that Defendants could access protected materials
independently for the purpose of preparing because requiring the presence of attorneys
for every review session would “impose undue and substantial burdens on the
defendants and counsel”).
The government argues that its proposed order should be entered because it
would “provide the defense with sufficient information to adequately represent [the]
defendant.” Dkt. 65 ¶ 5; see also id. ¶ 13.d (defining the “Defense Team” to exclude
the defendant). The government’s position represents a fundamental misunderstanding
of the defendant’s role in protecting his own liberty. The defendant’s right to
participate in his own defense is sacrosanct and entitled to heavy weight. Contrary to
the government’s proposed protective order:
The Sixth Amendment does not provide merely that a defense shall be
made for the accused; it grants to the accused personally the right to make
his defense. It is the accused, not counsel, who must be ‘informed of the
nature and cause of the accusation,’ who must be ‘confronted with the
witnesses against him,’ and who must be accorded ‘compulsory process
for obtaining witnesses in his favor.’ Although not stated in the
Amendment in so many words, the right to self-representation—to make
one's own defense personally—is thus necessarily implied by the structure
of the Amendment. The right to defend is given directly to the accused; for
it is he who suffers the consequences if the defense fails.
Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806, 819 (1975). The implicit proposition of the
government’s proposed protective order—that a criminal defendant has no right to
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investigate the charges against him or prepare his own defense—has no basis in law and
should be rejected out of hand.
The government claims that screensharing one document at a time is sufficient to
protect Ayvazyan’s right to participate in his defense. The government is wrong for
three reasons.
First, screensharing one document at a time might allow Ayvazyan to review
preselected exhibits like a witness, but see infra, but it would not allow him to be a
member of the defense team. Part of Ayvazyan’s role on the defense team is to identify
key categories of exculpatory evidence. See Dkt. 63 § III.B. As noted supra in Section
I.A, Ayvazyan will identify exculpatory evidence by reviewing discovery on Steptoe’s
eDiscovery platform. In normal times, it would be a burden for Ayvazyan to conduct
this review with counsel present—Ayvazyan would have to come to Steptoe’s office
and sit at a computer clicking through documents while counsel worked on other trial
preparation next to him. Due to COVID, it is an impossibility. Ayvazyan cannot sit in
a room with counsel, and the government’s proposed order would transform retained
counsel into a babysitter, clicking “next document” and awaiting instructions when they
should be preparing for trial. See United States v. Baker, No. 20-cr-288, 2020 WL
4589808, at *4 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 10, 2020) (emphasizing the “value and [] interest in the
defendant being able to freely review the evidence against him, on his own time, and
without a defense lawyer or anyone else looking over his shoulder”). Ayvazyan is an
active member of his defense team and needs to be able to do his job without impeding
the ability of the other members of that team to do their jobs.
Second, having counsel screenshare exhibits is not even an adequate substitution
for witness preparation, much less fact investigation. Courts, defense counsel, and even
prosecutors have all agreed that screensharing individual documents is an inadequate
replacement for in-person review. See, e.g., Baker, 2020 WL 4589808, at *4 (rejecting
government’s proposed protective order for failure to adequately protect the
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defendant’s rights); Joint Resp. of USAO & Defense at 2, United States v. Abdelaziz,
No. 19-cr-10080, Dkt. 1659 (D. Mass. Dec. 4, 2020) (videoconference screensharing
“is not an adequate substitute” for preparation sessions because of “unavoidable
communication lags and other technological issues, as well as the fact that presenting
exhibits to a witness remotely … can be cumbersome”). Undersigned counsel has no
doubt that the Court has noticed that there are occasionally videoconference glitches
even in short sessions. Videos cut out, static hits, and people disconnect. Those
glitches occur exponentially more when a videocall has been going for eight hours to go
through hundreds of documents rather than a one-hour hearing. As prosecutors have
recognized in other cases, screensharing is not a reliable enough substitute to take the
place of independent document review.
Third, setting aside the inadequacy of clicking through each document with
counsel, the government’s proposed order falls woefully short of even this mark by
conditioning exhibit-sharing via videoconference on a written certification that there is
“no way” for the defendant to photograph, record, write down, or memorialize in any
way the document being shared or any of the information in the document. Dkt. 65 ¶
13.m. Such a certification would be impossible. There is no set of restrictions that
could provide the absolute impossibility required by the government’s proposed order.
Nor would such restrictions necessary or appropriate.5 As W.R. Grace makes clear
even in the context of medical records—which, unlike the files in this case, are subject
to strict statutory protection—protective orders require balancing any potential harm
5 An example of the inappropriateness of the government’s proposed order would be to
consider the escrow files showing deposits for the purchase of Ayvazyan’s home. Each page
of the escrow files would be Confidential Information because they contain names, addresses,
email addresses, and financial information. As a result, Ayvazyan would be prohibited from
possessing any version of the escrow files. If counsel wished to ask Ayvazyan about the
circumstances of a particular transfer, Ayvazyan would be prohibited from writing down the
date of the transfer because that would be “any data or information contained in the
Confidential Information.”
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against the defendant’s due process rights. As in W.R. Grace, a similar prohibition on
misuse of discovery “for improper or illegal purposes” sufficiently mitigates the risk of
harm without unnecessary infringement on due process rights.6
III.
CONCLUSION
Ayvazyan requests that the Court deny the government’s ex parte application and
grant Ayvazyan’s application for discovery for the reasons stated above in Section I and
in Dkt. 63 § III.A. In the event the Court concludes that a protective order is necessary,
Ayvazyan requests that the Court enter the proposed protective order at Dkt. 63-2, and
direct the government to immediately produce discovery for the reasons stated above in
Section II and in Dkt. 63 § III.B.
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6 Finally, the government’s application highlights the seemingly short turnaround time
between when defense counsel asked for the government’s position on the defendant’s ex
parte application and when it was filed. Dkt. 65 ¶ 20. In reality, the parties had been
negotiating the terms of a potential protective order since the defense proposed a draft
protective order on November 18, 2020, including an offered stipulation from the defense to
abide by the terms of the protective order until the outstanding issues related to the protective
order could be brought before the Court. When the government refused to agree to this
compromise, it became clear that extraordinary relief was necessary and, pursuant to the
Court’s individual procedures regarding ex parte applications, defendant filed his ex parte
application as soon as he became aware that this relief was necessary. The subject of the ex
parte applications was not a surprise.
Case 2:20-cr-00579-SVW Document 74 Filed 12/09/20 Page 13 of 14 Page ID
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OPPOSITION TO GOVERNMENT’S EX PARTE APPLICATION
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Dated: December 9, 2020
Respectfully submitted,
STEPTOE & JOHNSON LLP
/s/ Ashwin J. Ram
Ashwin J. Ram (SBN 227513)
aram@steptoe.com
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) 429-3902
Counsel for Defendant Richard Ayvazyan
Case 2:20-cr-00579-SVW Document 74 Filed 12/09/20 Page 14 of 14 Page ID
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