April 24, 2024 - LOS ANGELES – A federal grand jury on Tuesday indicted a Burbank man who allegedly evaded the payment of nearly $5.8 million in federal taxes over several years by using a shill to illegally collect Medicare reimbursement payments made to his blood-testing company.

Armen Muradyan, 58, is charged via indictment with one count of tax evasion. He has been in federal custody since his April 9 arrest at Los Angeles International Airport on a criminal complaint in this matter. Muradyan, a dual citizen of the United States and Armenia, was arrested prior to boarding a one-way flight whose ultimate destination was Armenia.

Muradyan’s arraignment is scheduled for April 29 in United States District Court in downtown Los Angeles.

According to court documents, Muradyan owned and operated a Burbank-based blood testing laboratory called Genex Laboratories Inc. Medicare and bank records show that Medicare paid millions of dollars in reimbursements to Genex for blood testing. The reimbursements were wired to bank accounts in the name of an individual identified in court documents as “L.S.” – Muradyan’s long-time friend to whom Muradyan had offered to pay $2,000 per month to pretend to be Genex’s owner.

Muradyan allegedly told L.S. that he needed him to submit Medicare enrollment papers to Medicare on Genex’s behalf because Medicare had banned Muradyan from submitting claims.

L.S. and Muradyan allegedly opened bank accounts for Genex in L.S.’s name, but which Muradyan controlled. L.S. neither owned nor operated Genex and visited the company’s Burbank office to collect his $2,000 monthly payment and to sometimes sign documents at Muradyan’s direction.

For the tax years of 2015 through 2020, Muradyan allegedly instructed L.S. to report Genex’s financial activity on L.S.’s personal income tax returns using documents that L.S. provided to his own tax preparer. The documents purportedly showed that Genex had minimal net profit or was operating at a loss, meaning the company had little or no income tax liability.

For the same period, Muradyan allegedly submitted income tax returns that reported none of Genex’s financial activity as his own and that he averaged an income of $40,000 per year. In fact, Muradyan allegedly personally received and used millions of dollars in Medicare reimbursements to support his own expensive lifestyle.

For these tax years, Muradyan’s unreported income was approximately $16,231,046, resulting in a total federal income tax due and owing by him of approximately $5,771,567, according to court documents.

An indictment is merely an allegation, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

IRS Criminal Investigation, the FBI, and the United States Department of Health and Human Services – Office of Inspector General are investigating this matter.

Assistant United States Attorney Mark Aveis of the Major Frauds Section and Trial Attorney Mahana K. Weidler of the Department of Justice’s Tax Division are prosecuting this case.
Source: DOJ Release