Burbank Blood Lab Owner Swindled Feds of $5.8M in Taxes

Burbank Blood Lab Owner Swindled Feds of $5.8M in Taxes

A federal grand jury has indicted Armen Muradyan, 58, the owner of Burbank-based Genex Laboratories Inc., for allegedly evading the payment of nearly $5.8 million in federal taxes over several years. Muradyan has been in federal custody since his April 9 arrest at Los Angeles International Airport.

According to court documents, Muradyan used a shill, identified as ‘L.S.’, to illegally collect Medicare reimbursement payments made to his blood-testing company. Medicare and bank records show that Medicare paid millions of dollars in reimbursements to Genex for blood testing, which were wired to bank accounts in L.S.’s name.

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 the tax years of 2015 through 2020, 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.

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

The investigation into this matter is being conducted by IRS Criminal Investigation, the FBI, and the United States Department of Health and Human Services – Office of Inspector General. 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.