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 collect Medicare reimbursement payments made to his blood-testing company illegally, according to authorities.
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, officials stated.
Muradyan, a dual citizen of the United States and Armenia, was arrested before boarding a one-way flight whose ultimate destination was Armenia.
Muradyan is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
According to court documents, Muradyan owned and operated a Burbank-based blood testing laboratory called Genex Laboratories Inc. Medicare.
Bank records show that Medicare paid Genex millions of dollars in reimbursements 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 monthly to pretend to be Genex’s owner.
Muradyan allegedly told L.S. 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, which Muradyan controlled.
L.S. neither owned nor operated Genex. He visited the company’s Burbank office to collect his $2,000 monthly payment and sometimes signed 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.
Muradyan allegedly personally received and used millions of dollars in Medicare reimbursements to support his expensive lifestyle.
According to court documents, Muradyan’s unreported income for these tax years was approximately $16,231,046, resulting in a total federal income tax due and owing by him of approximately $5.7 million.
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.