Local man guilty of bank fraud




A Calabasas resident pleaded guilty in Los Angeles federal court last month to committing almost $1 million in bank fraud.

Edgar Sargsyan, 39, an attorney with law offices in Beverly Hills, was charged with conspiracy to commit bank fraud, two counts of bribing a public official and two counts of making false statements to federal officials. He pleaded guilty to all charges and is facing up to 50 years in prison.

Between August 2014 and November 2016, Sargsyan and a group of conspirators defrauded numerous banks by posing as visa-holding immigrants and applying for credit cards, which would then be charged at businesses controlled by Sargsyan.

The group charged over $940,000 on the falsified credit cards, a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

Sargsyan also admitted to bribery, saying that between 2015 and 2017 he paid approximately $80,000 to a special agent with the Homeland Security Investigations office to pass information to Sargsyan, as well as to modify an agency database to make it more likely that a client of Sargsyan’s would be able to enter the country, prosecutors said.

“(The agent) attempted to have defendant’s family member ‘paroled’ into the United States from Armenia by falsely claiming that defendant’s family member was a confidential source aiding the United States government and local law enforcement in drug investigations. The (agent) drafted a formal parole request on HSI letterhead . . . which was approved by an unwitting supervisor,” the plea agreement stated.

“When the attempt to parole defendant’s family member into the United States was unsuccessful, the family member turned himself in to Customs and Border Protection at the U.S.-Mexico border as an asylum applicant.”

Sargsyan also confessed to paying a monthly cash bribe up to $10,000 to an agent with the FBI for protection—investigating people on Sargsyan’s behalf and warning him who was being targeted by the FBI for an investigation so Sargsyan could steer clear of them.

Sargsyan bought the agent a $36,000 racing motorcycle and gave them a $30,000 cashier’s check to buy a new vacation home.

“(Sargsyan told federal investigators) the $30,000 check to the FBI agent was a loan when in fact, as defendant then knew, defendant provided the $30,000 check to the FBI as a bribe in exchange for the FBI special agent accessing law enforcement databases,” the plea agreement said.

The cases against the two federal agents are pending.

Sargsyan will appear back in L.A. federal court on June 9.

Follow Ian Bradley on Twitter @Ian_ reports.