{"id":252446,"date":"2014-04-21T19:19:21","date_gmt":"2014-04-21T15:19:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/?p=252446"},"modified":"2014-04-21T19:19:21","modified_gmt":"2014-04-21T15:19:21","slug":"two-leaders-of-armenian-power-gang-convicted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2014\/04\/21\/two-leaders-of-armenian-power-gang-convicted.html","title":{"rendered":"Two Leaders of Armenian Power Gang Convicted"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThree men with ties to the Armenian Power gang were convicted in federal court last week for their roles in a vast racketeering conspiracy and a sophisticated debit card skimming scheme that targeted thousands of customers at 99 Cents Only stores across Southern California, authorities said, reports the Los Angeles Times<\/strong><\/span><\/a>. <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tTwo leaders of the gang — Mher Darbinyan, 38, known to some as “Capone,” and Arman “Horse” Sharopetrosian, 35 — were convicted Thursday of racketeering conspiracy and extortion, as well as a slew of other related charges, according to an announcement from the US attorney for Central California.\n<\/p>\n

\n\tDarbinyan was found guilty of 57 criminal counts, including bank fraud, aggravated identity theft and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. He faces a maximum of roughly 973 years in federal prison. He is due in court for sentencing on July 21.\n<\/p>\n

\n\tSharopetrosian, who was convicted of three counts — racketeering conspiracy, extortion conspiracy and extortion — could be sentenced to 60 years in federal prison when he returns to court for sentencing, scheduled for Sept. 15.\n<\/p>\n

\n\tDarbinyan faces a maximum of 30 years in federal prison for each of his 14 counts of bank fraud and is scheduled to be sentenced July 14.\n<\/p>\n

\n\tAlso found guilty on Thursday of 14 counts of bank fraud was Rafael Parsadanyan, a 29-year-old Los Angeles resident and an associate of the gang.\n<\/p>\n

\n\tThe convictions represent some of the last few cases remaining from a sweeping investigation that involved nearly a dozen federal and local law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, the Glendale Police Department, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the IRS.\n<\/p>\n

\n\tFederal prosecutors indicted 90 people in 2011 for crimes ranging from kidnapping and extortion to identity theft and passing counterfeit checks. Of the group, 85 have now been convicted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three men with ties to the Armenian Power gang were convicted in federal court last week for their roles in a vast racketeering conspiracy and a sophisticated debit card skimming scheme…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":252436,"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\/252446"}],"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=252446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}