Vardan Keshishyan, Structuring, California 2021

LOS ANGELES – A former deportation officer with the Department of Homeland Security was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison for ‘structuring’ charges for making cash withdrawals and deposits totaling nearly $200,000, which were designed to circumvent federal reporting requirements and to conceal assets from his then-wife and the state court during divorce proceedings.

Vardan Keshishyan, 50, of Glendale, was sentenced by United States District Judge Philip S. Gutierrez.

At the conclusion of a three-day trial in September 2021, a federal jury found Keshishyan guilty of two counts of structuring of currency transactions to evade reporting requirements.

Shortly after his then-wife filed for divorce in November 2014, Keshishyan began structuring nearly $100,000 out of his bank accounts to deceive the court into believing he only had $1,000 in assets that could be distributed during the divorce.

In January 2015, Keshishyan deposited approximately $96,000 from the sale of the home he shared with his then-wife into a bank account he solely owned and controlled. He then withdrew $99,400 from his bank accounts by making 11 cash withdrawals of approximately $9,000 – each withdrawal just shy of the bank’s mandatory reporting requirements for cash transactions above $10,000.

During one attempted withdrawal, a bank manager warned Keshishyan that it was a crime to break up a cash transaction greater than $10,000 into smaller amounts to evade the bank’s reporting requirements mandated by federal law. After the manager informed Keshishyan that the bank planned to file a report to comply with federal law, he cancelled the transaction. He then continued his pattern of structured transactions elsewhere to avoid the filing of any report required under federal law.

Vardan Keshishyan is a former deportation officer with the Department of Homeland Security. He was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison for structuring nearly $200,000 during divorce proceedings. The exact criminal charges against Vardan Keshishyan are structuring of currency transactions to evade reporting requirements. The city and state where the crime took place is Los Angeles, California. The exact date of the crime is November 2014. The sentence or outcome for Vardan Keshishyan is 15 months in federal prison.

Related Federal Cases