Los Angeles, California — Mr. Khojayan’s client was charged with mail fraud and money laundering involving postage services spanning over 3 years. The defendants were allegedly using fake postage or underweight postage to ship products from China to the United States. The fraud resulted in over $34,000,000 in losses to the U.S. Postal Service. The lead co-defendant pled guilty and agreed to forfeit over 10 parcels of real estate to the government. The co-defendant was also cooperating against Mr. Khojayan’s client. The government offered Mr. Khojayan’s client a plea agreement that would result in over 12 years in prison.
Mr. Khojayan and his client rejected the offer. Mr. Khojayan carefully reviewed the search warrants against his client and discovered that the first search warrant — which was the basis for the additional search warrants — was deficient in several ways, including that it did not establish the credibility of the informants against Mr. Khojayan’s client or how the informants were shown to be reliable. Mr. Khojayan challenged the search warrants.
In response, to avoid litigating the matter, the AUSA agreed to limit the fraud to a one-month time period that resulted in a loss of only $95,000, no cooperation, no forfeiture of any assets, and immediate bail. The Court sentenced the defendant to time-served and 4 months of home detention as part of 2 years of probation. The client was extremely happy with the result and was able to be at home with his family.
