A Southern California woman, who lied earlier this year to federal agents about the source of $21,000 confiscated by the Department of Homeland Security, received her punishment this month inside Orange County's Ronald Reagan Federal Courthouse.
Armine Nazaryan (a.k.a. Marian Nazaryan), who had been free from custody on $100,000 bail and was born in 1972, must perform 100 hours of community service and undergo federal supervised probation for two years, according to a ruling by U.S. District Court Judge James V. Selna.
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A February 2013 federal indictment, written cryptically to keep the public in the dark about an apparent larger probe, accused the Los Angeles woman of lying that the confiscated funds originated as a personal loan for her beauty salon business.
Federal prosecutors claimed Nazaryan “well knew” that the $21,000 “were proceeds derived from a [masked] source.”
Nazaryan backed the U.S. Department of Justice sentencing position of probation and community service as a resolution.
Federal court records show the mysterious offense occurred in Los Angeles and Orange County.
Before a May plea deal, a seven to 10-day trial had been scheduled for late July.
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CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.