A 39-year-old attorney with an office in Beverly Hills has agreed to plead guilty to five federal offenses – one related to a credit card scheme and four others related to more than $250,000 in bribes he paid to two federal agents for assistance obtaining sensitive law enforcement information.
Edgar Sargsyan, of Calabasas, was charged on April 28 with one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, two counts of bribing a public official and two counts of making false statements to federal investigators. In a plea agreement also filed on April 28 in United States District Court, Sargsyan agreed to plead guilty to the five felony counts, which cumulatively carry a statutory maximum penalty of 50 years in federal prison.
In the plea agreement, Sargsyan admitted paying tens of thousands of dollars from the beginning of 2015 through early 2017 to a special agent with Homeland Security Investigations and a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Sargsyan paid the HSI agent at least $32,000 in checks and at least $45,000 to $50,000 in cash in return for assistance that included the agent searching law enforcement databases to obtain information that he passed to Sargsyan, according to the plea agreement. The HSI agent also altered a Department of Homeland Security database to make it more likely that a foreign national who was a client of Sargsyan’s law firm would be allowed to enter the United States. In another act detailed in the plea agreement, the agent prepared a document on HSI letterhead in an unsuccessful attempt to have one of Sargsyan’s relatives from Armenia admitted into the United States.
Sargsyan also admitted he paid the FBI agent monthly cash bribes of up to $10,000 beginning in 2015 in exchange for an agent providing “protection,” which included running queries on law enforcement databases and warning Sargsyan to “stay away” from certain individuals who were the targets of criminal investigations, according to the plea agreement. The agent, who worked in the FBI’s San Francisco Field Office, accepted the cash payments on trips to Southern California, where he stayed at luxury hotels paid for by Sargsyan. The FBI agent also accepted a $36,000 racing motorcycle as a bonus for running database checks on a particular person. Sargsyan also gave the FBI agent a $30,000 cashier’s check that was made to appear to be a payment to the agent’s business, according to court documents.
Sargsyan agreed to plead guilty to two additional counts of making false statements to federal investigators. Information provided by the U.S. Attorney’s Office did not address investigations or charges against the two agents who allegedly accepted bribes
Sargsyan has been directed to make his initial court appearance on June 9.
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