{"id":149718,"date":"2011-12-20T11:24:37","date_gmt":"2011-12-20T07:24:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/?p=149718"},"modified":"2011-12-20T11:31:53","modified_gmt":"2011-12-20T07:31:53","slug":"armenian-mobster-pleads-guilty-to-us-medicare-scheme-gets-10-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2011\/12\/20\/armenian-mobster-pleads-guilty-to-us-medicare-scheme-gets-10-years.html","title":{"rendered":"Armenian Mobster Pleads Guilty to US Medicare Scheme, Gets 10 Years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>An Armenian mobster is facing the music \u2014 more than 10 years in the slammer \u2014 after pleading guilty in Manhattan yesterday to racketeering schemes that included helping a group of musicians from his home country of Armenia get bogus travel visas to visit the United States, the <span style=\"color: #000080;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nypost.com\/p\/news\/local\/manhattan\/swan_song_for_gangster_T3KqaxeuQkAVNhHjioXmaJ\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><strong>New York Post<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/span> reports.<\/p>\n<p>Robert Terdjanian, 37, admitted running a gang of crooks \u2014 known as the <span style=\"color: #000080;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.fbi.gov\/newyork\/press-releases\/2010\/nyfo101310.htm\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><strong>Mirzoyan-Terdjanian Organization<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/span> \u2014 that also stole upward of $35 million through a <span style=\"color: #000080;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/en\/2010\/10\/14\/armenian-americans-charged-in-largest-medicare-scam-ever.html\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><strong>massive Medicare-fraud scheme<\/strong><\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Manhattan federal prosecutors say the operation stole the identities of doctors and patients to set up 118 \u201cphantom\u201d medical clinics that submitted more than $100 million in phony claims.<\/p>\n<p>Terdjanian, a former drug addict whose rap sheet includes burglary, shoplifting and weapons convictions, also admitted that he \u201cimplicitly threatened the use of violence and other criminal means\u201d to collect money owed to him.<\/p>\n<p>According to his indictment, he threatened to disembowel a fellow gangster during a May 2009 \u201csit-down\u201d at a Brighton Beach restaurant.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI apologize to this court and to the United States government for my actions,\u201d said Terdjanian, who likely faces deportation once he finishes his prison sentence.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Manhattan federal prosecutors say the operation stole the identities of doctors and patients to set up 118 \u201cphantom\u201d medical clinics&#8230;<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":149713,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149718"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}