A San Fernando Valley man was sentenced Friday to 17 1/2 years in federal prison for using stolen identities to obtain more than $1.5 million 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.
Eduard Gasparyan, 38, of Granada Hills, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Josephine L. Staton, who also ordered him to pay $2.23 million in restitution, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Gasparyan pleaded guilty a year ago in Los Angeles federal court 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, which administers the state’s unemployment insurance program.
As the COVID-19 pandemic worsened in 2020, Congress implemented Pandemic Unemployment Assistance 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 Aug. 23, 2021, Gasparyan was filmed via surveillance camera at a bank ATM withdrawing $4,500 from nine debit cards within a 7-minute span, prosecutors said.
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,…
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