A Granada Hills man was sentenced to more than 17 years in federal prison for his role in a COVID-19 aid fraud scheme and stealing dozens of cars using fake documents.
Eduard Gasparyan, 38, was sentenced to 210 months in prison and will have to pay more than $2.2 million in restitution, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a news release.
Gasparyan, who also used the names “Rudy Pineda” and “Papin Galstyan,” pleaded guilty in February 2023 to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
From 2020 to September 2022, Gasparyan and his then-fiancée, 39-year-old Angela Karchyan, also of Granada Hills, “stole the identities of victims and used them to apply for unemployment insurance benefits from the California Employment Development Department (EDD), which administers the state’s unemployment insurance program,” the release said.
Gasparyan and Karchyan then used the debit cards containing the unemployment benefits to withdraw cash at ATMs.
“For example, on August 23, 2021, Gasparyan was filmed via surveillance camera at a bank ATM withdrawing $4,500 from nine debit cards within a 7-minute span,” the release 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.”
More than $850,000 in jobless benefits were paid out on nearly 50 claims to two addresses tied to Gasparyan in Van Nuys and Granada Hills.
The pair also use fake checks and bank account numbers to buy vehicles, as well as using fake identities to rent cars, then use fraudulent documents to register the vehicles in their names, defrauding the rental car companies.
“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,” prosecutors argued in a sentencing memorandum. “Of course, many individual victims of [Gasparyan’s] identity theft also suffered the anxiety of destroyed credit ratings, and the tremendous effort necessary to prove to lenders and landlords that they are not deadbeats, but rather victims of [Gasparyan’s] scheme.”
Karchyan, who also pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in February 2023, was sentenced to 41 months in federal prison and must repay more than $2.2 million in restitution.
Anyone with information about COVID-19-related fraud can call the Department of Justice’s National Center for Disaster Fraud Hotline at 866-720-5721 or visit justice.gov/disaster-fraud/ncdf-disaster-complaint-form.