A former Newport Beach physician who faked his own death to dodge an insurance fraud case and hid out in Russia and Egypt for 14 years was sentenced today to more than two years in federal prison for fleeing the district to evade justice.
Tigran Svadjian, 58, was sentenced to 29 months behind bars and ordered to spend one year on supervised release -- including four months of community service -- following his prison term.
"He was greedy and he was selfish," U.S. District Judge Michael Fitzgerald said. "He got in a spiral and panicked. He has only himself to blame."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Bryant Y.F. Yang said Svadjian's efforts to escape prison -- including the bribery of a foreign official in exchange for a false death certificate which was then provided to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow -- were "extraordinary."
In 2002, Svadjian was facing federal health care fraud charges in Sacramento for bilking the state Medi-Cal program out of about $2.4 million in fraudulent insurance billings.
After agreeing to cooperate with the government's investigation -- and indicating he would plead guilty -- Svadjian was allowed to travel to Moscow to visit his ailing mother. But in October 2002, federal officials were notified that Svadjian died of pneumonia while in Russia and his remains had been cremated. The fraud charges were eventually dismissed.
Svadjian was arrested last summer while trying to travel to Russia with a fake Lithuanian passport so he could visit his girlfriend who was pregnant with his second child. He had been living in Egypt for more than a decade and working part-time as a scuba instructor.
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He was escorted back to the U.S. by federal agents 14 years after he fled.
Svadjian told FBI agents in Egypt that a police officer in Russia had helped him fake his death in exchange for $200.
Fitzgerald said the defendant ``truly deserves'' a five-year prison sentence. The judge said he has "sufficient evidence" that Svadjian would have been convicted of "stealing $2.4 million of the government's money" if the original health care fraud case had gone forward.
"Apparently, there is a Swiss bank account," the judge said. "He stole an extremely large sum from Medi-Cal."
But defense attorney Andre Townsend said it was unfair for the judge to assume that his client was guilty of insurance fraud.
The attorney said Svadjian fled in 2002 because he was afraid he would be sent to prison.
"With his back against the wall, he reverted to survival tactics and fled the country," Townsend told the judge.
A naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Armenia, Svadjian left his estranged wife and children behind in Newport Beach when he first traveled overseas.
"He didn't merely flee from prosecution," Yang told the court. "He did a whole host of things in a scheme to obstruct justice."
In the original fraud case, Svadjian faced up to 10 years in prison, but the charges had a five-year statute of limitations. It's unclear whether the statute was suspended after he vanished.
Additionally, federal authorities discarded the evidence against him, thinking he was dead, court papers show. Prosecutors indicated that the fraud charges would not be reinstated.
Svadjian pleaded guilty in November in Los Angeles to a single federal count of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, a felony which carries a five-year maximum sentence.
Svadjian apologized to the court, promising that he was now a "different man."
"I would just like to go to my family," he said. "I don't have much time to see my children grow up."
Fitzgerald had the last word.
"Really, he deserves 60 months," the judge said. "Did he get away with something? To a very large degree, yes."
