A couple convicted of stealing Covid funds is on the run, the F.B.I. says.

[Nevilledog]

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The New York Times
@nytimes
After a California couple was convicted of stealing Covid-19 relief funds, they cut their monitoring bracelets and fled, according to the authorities, and left their children behind. This week, they were sentenced in absentia.
Richard Ayvazyan, who was convicted in a scheme to steal $20 million in Covid-19 relief funds, at the federal courthouse in Los Angeles in June.

A couple convicted of stealing Covid funds is on the run, the F.B.I. says.
Richard Ayvazyan and his wife, Marietta Terabelian, cut their monitoring bracelets and fled in August, the agency said. On Monday, they were sentenced in absentia.
nytimes.com
2:00 PM · Nov 17, 2021

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/17/us/covid-relief-fraud-fugitives.html

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When the Covid-19 pandemic began last year, a Southern California man recruited his brother, his wife and many others to use the identities of older people, foreign exchange students who had left the country and dead relatives to apply for $20 million in federal relief funds, the authorities said.

The man, Richard Ayvazyan, 43, bought a $3.25 million mansion and filled it with gold coins, luxury watches and imported furniture using the stolen Covid-19 disaster-relief funds, federal prosecutors in California said.

In June, Mr. Ayvazyan; his wife, Marietta Terabelian, 37; and Artur Ayvazyan, Mr. Ayvazyan’s brother, were convicted of scheming to fraudulently obtain funding that was meant for people and businesses that had sustained economic losses as a result of the pandemic.

In August, as they awaited sentencing at their home in the San Fernando Valley, Mr. Ayvazyan and Ms. Terabelian removed their bracelet monitors and fled, according to the F.B.I. They left their children behind, according to federal prosecutors.

*snip*

[SoCalNative]

1. Have they checked Yerevan?

That would be my guess.

[LiberalFighter]

2. I doubt people like him can be rehabilitated.

They shouldn't just pay back what they stole. It should include cost of investigating and recouping the money.

[Haggard Celine]

3. Scumbags.

I hope I see them. I could use the $20,000.

[brush]

4. How much did they steal?

[BlackSkimmer]

5. Oh my.

[Demovictory9]

6. There was attempt to get the kids passports to Armenia