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March 29
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A Glendale lawyer pleaded guilty today to federal charges of using his client trust bank accounts to launder proceeds of a $14 million tax fraud and identity theft scheme that used false identities and bogus Republic of Armenia passports to obtain tax refunds from the Internal Revenue Service, The Global Dispatch reported.

Arthur S. Charchian, 44, entered guilty pleas to two felony counts this morning before United States District Judge Andrew J. Guilford. Charchian pleaded guilty to one count of money laundering and one count of making a false statement to the Social Security Administration.

According to his plea agreement, Charchian participated in a scheme in which he used two client trust bank accounts – which are supposed to be used by attorneys to segregate client funds from the attorney’s money – to launder approximately $549,000 of proceeds generated in a massive “stolen identity refund fraud” (SIRF) scheme.

Charchian admitted in court that from 2012 to 2015 he laundered checks that constituted the proceeds of bank fraud, tax fraud, and identity theft. Charchian became involved in the underlying tax fraud scheme when banks flagged accounts being used by co-conspirators to launder proceeds of the SIRF scheme. Charchian received checks from co-conspirators, deposited those checks into his client trust accounts, and then wrote outgoing checks. He admitted charging a 10 percent fee to launder the money.

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