By City News Service
A Glendale man was sentenced Wednesday to time already served for his role in a scheme that defrauded banks out of $2.1 million by stealing the identities of at least 11 dentists, opening sham dental offices and submitting fraudulent claims to banks that offered lines of credit to dental workers.
Artin Sarkissians, 47, was also ordered to pay a share of more than $2 million in restitution, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.
Sarkissians pleaded guilty five years ago in downtown Los Angeles to one federal count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud.
The scheme operated from October 2010 until March 2014, when the defendants — including Ararat Yesayan, 43, and Varooj Arakelian, 54, both of Glendale — impersonated dentists by stealing personal identifying information, including dental license numbers.
The defendants then acquired commercial office space to open what looked like real dental offices in the names of victim dentists, according to Yesayan’s plea agreement filed in Los Angeles federal court.
Yesayan and associates submitted change of address requests to the Dental Board of California using the addresses of the newly opened sham dental offices so they would receive mail intended for the impersonated dentists.
Using the victim dentists’ names, defendants applied for lines of credit and, upon approval, submitted numerous fraudulent dental claims in the names of fake patients for procedures that were never performed.
Once the claims were approved, money was wired to Yesayan-controlled bank accounts. The victim lenders included Citibank and GE Capital Retail Finance Bank (now Synchrony Bank), which suffered losses of at least $2.1 million, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Yesayan and Arakelian both pleaded guilty to bank fraud conspiracy and were sentenced to 37 months and 24 months, respectively, in federal prison and ordered to pay shares of over $2 million in restitution, court papers show.
First published in the June 8 print issue of the Glendale News-Press.
