U.S. Department of Labor OIG, Granada Hills Man Sentenced to 17½ Years in Federal Prison for COVID Jobless Benefits Scam and for Stealing Title to Dozens of Cars (USAO CD-CA 02/09/2024) (2024-02-14)

Summary

Press release 24-038 from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California, dated February 9, 2024, announcing that Eduard Gasparyan of Granada Hills was sentenced by United States District Judge Josephine L. Staton to 210 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $2,232,767 in restitution. Gasparyan pleaded guilty in February 2023 to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. According to the release, from at least 2020 to September 2022 Gasparyan and Angela Karchyan used stolen identities to apply for unemployment benefits from the California Employment Development Department, obtaining more than $1,568,000, and stole title to cars by presenting forged documents to the DMV. Karchyan also pleaded guilty and is serving a 41-month prison sentence.

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PRESS RELEASE



Granada Hills Man Sentenced to
17½ Years in Federal Prison for
COVID Jobless Benefits Scam and
for Stealing Title to Dozens of Cars
Friday, February 9, 2024

For Immediate Release
U.S. Attorney's Office, Central District of California

LOS ANGELES – A San Fernando Valley man was sentenced today to 210 months in
federal prison for using stolen identities to fraudulently obtain more than $1,568,000 in
COVID-19 pandemic-related unemployment benefits, and for stealing title to dozens of
cars by presenting forged documents to the California Department of Motor Vehicles
(DMV).

Eduard Gasparyan, 38, a.k.a. “Rudy Pineda” and “Papin Galstyan,” of Granada Hills, was
sentenced by United States District Judge Josephine L. Staton, who also ordered him to
pay $2,232,767 in restitution.

Gasparyan pleaded guilty in February 2023 to one count of conspiracy to commit wire
fraud.

From at least 2020 to September 2022, Gasparyan and his then-fiancée, Angela
Karchyan, 39, of Granada Hills, stole the identities of victims and used them to apply for
unemployment insurance benefits from the California Employment Development
Department (EDD), which administers the state’s unemployment insurance program.

As the COVID-19 pandemic worsened in 2020, Congress implemented Pandemic
Unemployment Assistance (PUA) provisions to expand access to unemployment benefits
to self-employed workers, independent contractors, and others who would not
otherwise be eligible for them.
After the bogus unemployment insurance benefits applications were approved,
Gasparyan and Karchyan used debit cards containing the fraudulently obtained benefits
to withdraw cash at ATMs.

For example, on August 23, 2021, Gasparyan was filmed via surveillance camera at a
bank ATM withdrawing $4,500 from nine debit cards within a 7-minute span. Three of
the debit cards were issued in Gasparyan’s name while the other six debit cards were in
the names of other individuals, court documents state.

From February 2020 to August 2022, EDD paid out approximately $544,089 in
fraudulently obtained jobless benefits on at least 32 claims using the same address in
Van Nuys that Gasparyan used as a mailing address, according to court documents.
During that same time, EDD paid out approximately $307,012 in jobless benefits on at
least 16 claims to a Granada Hills address linked to Gasparyan.

Gasparyan and Karchyan purchased vehicles using their own names as well as the names
of identity theft victims but provided the sellers with worthless checks or bank account
numbers to purportedly pay for the vehicles.

Gasparyan and his co-conspirators also used stolen identities to rent vehicles and then
caused the DMV to remove the true owners – rental car companies – from the
registration for those vehicles by using forged documents.

“The primary victims of [Gasparyan’s] conspiracy are the taxpayers, whose efforts to
ameliorate the suffering of those who lost their jobs during the COVID pandemic
[Gasparyan] took for himself, and the owners of the automobiles he stole,” prosecutors
argued in a sentencing memorandum. “Of course, many individual victims of
[Gasparyan’s] identity theft also suffered the anxiety of destroyed credit ratings, and the
tremendous effort necessary to prove to lenders and landlords that they are not
deadbeats, but rather victims of [Gasparyan’s] scheme.”

Karchyan pleaded guilty in February 2023 to one count of conspiracy to commit wire
fraud. She is serving a 41-month prison sentence and was ordered to pay $2,232,767 in
restitution.

The United States Department of Labor – Office of Inspector General, California
Employment Development Department – Criminal Investigations, and the Orange
County Auto Theft Task Force investigated this matter.

Assistant United States Attorney Andrew Brown of the Major Frauds Section prosecuted
this case.
Anyone with information about allegations of attempted fraud involving COVID-19 can
report it by calling the Department of Justice’s National Center for Disaster Fraud
Hotline at (866) 720-5721 or via the NCDF Web Complaint Form
at: https://www.justice.gov/disaster-fraud/ncdf-disaster-complaint-form.

Contact
Ciaran McEvoy
Public Information Officer
ciaran.mcevoy@usdoj.gov
(213) 894-4465

Updated February 9, 2024

Topics
CORONAVIRUS

FINANCIAL FRAUD
Component
USAO - California, Central
Press Release Number: 24-038


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