A Granada Hills man has been given a hefty prison sentence for masterminding a fraudulent scheme that capitalized on pandemic aid funds, along with orchestrating a separate scam to unlawfully take possession of dozens of automobiles. The U.S. Department of Justice reported that 38-year-old Eduard Gasparyan, also known by the aliases "Rudy Pineda" and "Papin Galstyan," was sentenced to 17 and a half years in federal prison by United States District Judge Josephine L. Staton.
During the proceedings, Gasparyan was also ordered to pay restitution totaling over $2 million, almost double the sum he illegally garnered. The Department of Justice confirmed Gasparyan's guilty plea earlier in February 2023 to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. From the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic well into 2022, Gasparyan and his then-fiancée leveraged stolen identities to fraudulently procure and quickly dissipate unemployment benefits meant for those in dire need.
According to court documents, Gasparyan and Angela Karchyan, his accomplice and then-fiancée, successfully navigated through the Employment Development Department (EDD) system of California, filching identities and using them to lay false claims to the unemployment insurance benefits. The federal relief measures intended to soften the brutal economic blow delivered by the pandemic proved to be an opportune moment for the duo to exploit.
The EDD’s losses ring up to more than $850,000 on claims tied to addresses connected with Gasparyan. Surveillance evidence cited by the Justice Department, showed the convicted man withdrawing a large sum of money in a matter of minutes from multiple debit cards at a bank ATM, drawing further attention to the extensive nature of the fraud. To offset his scheme, prosecutors note that Gasparyan went so far as to purchase vehicles under stolen identities and even manipulated state DMV records with forged documents in an attempt to permanently disconnect cars from their rightful owners.
Public Information Officer Ciaran McEvoy of the DOJ remarked, "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." He highlighted the ripple effect of Gasparyan's fraudulent actions, referencing the substantial financial and emotional toll on individual victims who were forced to restore their tarnished credit reputations. Meanwhile, Karchyan faces 41 months behind bars herself, as she was ordered alongside her partner in crime.
The case against Gasparyan was brought to resolution through the collaborative investigation led by different agencies, including the California Employment Development Department – Criminal Investigations and the Orange County Auto Theft Task Force, under the oversight of Assistant United States Attorney Andrew Brown of the Major Frauds Section. The Department of Justice continues to actively encourage the public to report any suspicions of COVID-19-related fraud via their National Center for Disaster Fraud Hotline or the NCDF Web Complaint Form.
