Providence Journal, RI
Dec 7 2007
Man gets 6 years for card fraud at market
01:00 AM EST on Friday, December 7, 2007
By Paul Grimaldi
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE – A federal court judge yesterday ignored a plea for
leniency and a check for $31,000 in the case of a man charged with
helping steal bank-card information from supermarket customers in
Rhode Island.
U.S. District Judge William Smith sentenced Mikael Stepanian, 29, of
Studio City, Calif., to six years in prison for his role in the
scheme this year that siphoned $132,000 from the accounts of local
Stop & Shop patrons.
During a sentencing hearing in Providence, Stepanian’s lawyer
proffered a personal check from the defendant’s uncle, who was
sitting in the courtroom, to help pay back some of the money stolen
after Stepanian and three other Californians downloaded the personal
identification-number information from rigged checkout-lane PIN pads.
In turning back the check, Smith said: `I do not want to be perceived
in any way . . . as allowing a defendant to buy leniency.
`I don’t like the appearance of it.’
Stepanian and three others were arrested by state and Coventry police
Feb. 26 at the Stop & Shop on Tiogue Avenue in Coventry, where,
federal and state authorities said, the four had gone to retrieve a
checkout lane PIN pad rigged to capture shoppers’ financial-account
information.
Videotape evidence linked the men to 1,100 account thefts at Stop &
Shops in Providence, Cranston and Coventry, and ultimately, to ATM
withdrawals made in California, according to federal officials. The
men removed or tried to remove original PIN pads from at least six
stores in Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
The men were living in California before they flew to Rhode Island in
early February.
All four were charged with the same two crimes: conspiracy to commit
fraud and aggravated identity theft.
The other three, Arman Ter-Esayan, Gevork Baltadjian and Arutyun
Shatarevyan, have already been sentenced in the case.
Ter-Esayan, 22, of Valley Glen, was sentenced to six years in federal
prison.
Shatarevyan, 21, of Los Angeles, last week was sentenced to 66
months.
Baltadjian, 20, of Winnetka, was sentenced to 61 months for playing a
`minor’ role in the scheme.
All will remain on probation for three years after their releases and
all were ordered to pay $132,000 in restitution.
The four men are Armenian, although they hold permanent-resident
alien status in the United States. Three of them – Stepanian,
Baltadjian and Shatarevyan – arrived in the United States from
Armenia in 1993, and Ter-Esayan in 2003.
Baltadjian gained U.S. citizenship as a result of his mother being
granted citizenship before his 18th birthday.
But Stepanian, like Shatarevyan and Ter-Esayan, faces the prospect of
being deported after his release, a possibility his lawyer
acknowledged in court.
`I’m not saying that Mikael is an innocent shrinking violet,’ said
his lawyer, Barry E. Schulman, near the end of a nearly 30-minute
plea for leniency. `He’s going to be deported . . . He’s going to be
forced out of [the country].’
It was at that point Schulman told the judge that the defendant’s
uncle had arrived in Providence with a personal check to pay a
portion of the restitution amount levied against Stepanian. The
lawyer made the offer on behalf of Stepanian’s relative, Schulman
said, in the hope of seeing the sentence reduced.
The judge paused before saying, `I have never seen anyone make that
kind of an argument before,’ before asking Assistant U.S. Attorney
Lee H. Vilker his opinion on the offer.
Vilker said he didn’t want to `quantify’ a sentencing reduction based
on the offer and Smith later declined the `gesture.’
`I just don’t feel that it’s appropriate,’ he said.
Shortly thereafter, Smith handed down the sentence, the maximum
allowed under federal guidelines. After Stepanian’s release from
prison, he will be turned over to federal immigration officials for a
deportation hearing.
After yesterday’s court hearing, Schulman was asked about the
financial offer and said, `That was the family’s idea.’
Vilker, the government’s lawyer, said: `I think Judge Smith did the
right thing. . . . It will be interesting to see if this defendant
pays the check now.’
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
