Top Lawmakers Demand Investigation of Corruption in Armenian Genocide Victim Payments

Snyder greenlit some investigative efforts to uncover misconduct, but repeatedly denied a complete audit of the settlement.

“The court’s refusal to grant an independent audit is equally puzzling,” Speier said in the statement.

Snyder previously told the Times that the judicial code of conduct barred her from speaking about the settlement. She formally closed the case in 2016. Geragos and Kabateck, both descendants of genocide survivors, denied any wrongdoing in statements from representatives.

They have blamed others for the problems in the claims process, including other lawyers and a claims administrator, and pointed out that millions of dollars did go to Armenian charitable causes. Kabateck’s representative noted that money they sent to his and Geragos’ alma mater, Loyola Law School, was used to establish a genocide law center. Both noted that, despite complaints about the settlement to the State Bar of California, which polices the legal profession, and law enforcement agencies, there have been no criminal charges against the two lawyers or findings of misconduct on their part.

The Times’ investigation relied on newly unsealed records, emails among attorneys and confidential settlement records. Authorities previously took action against three other lawyers in connection with the settlement. A Beverly Hills attorney, Berj Boyajian, pleaded no contest in Superior Court to a felony and a misdemeanor charge in connection with making false claims to the State Bar and ultimately served no jail time. He later resigned his law license.

The bar moved against the law licenses of Vartkes Yeghiayan, a Glendale attorney who worked on the cases with Geragos and Kabateck, and his wife for allegedly misappropriating charity money. The case against her was thrown out. Yeghiayan died before trial.

Some Armenians in France and the US have campaigned to hold accountable additional figures in the settlement. As recently as last year, a member of the court-appointed French settlement board urged the L.A. County District Attorney to launch a new probe and similar requests have been made in recent years to the State Bar. There is no statute of limitations for investigations initiated by the bar into potential attorney misconduct.

Speier, the Bay Area congresswoman, raised the possibility of an investigation by the state auditor or state insurance commissioner.

Portantino said he wanted “continued investigation and transparency until the rightful recipients are justly compensated and any and all actions of potential wrongdoing are exposed and properly dealt with.”

The settlement and a preceding case against the insurer New York Life were lauded by Armenians in the mid-2000s. At the time, the community was still fighting for the U.S. government and others to recognize the 1915 genocide as a historical fact. President Biden finally recognized the genocide last year.

In 2018, the Armenian Bar Assn. — a professional organization for Armenian American lawyers — feted Snyder at its annual banquet with Kabateck, one of the attorneys in the AXA case, proclaiming, “Every judge should take lessons from the Honorable Christina Snyder.”

In the wake of the Times investigation, the Armenian Bar Assn. expressed “profound sadness and concern” over the involvement of Armenian American lawyers in the improprieties.

“If true, these allegations not only violate the ethical aspirations of the Armenian Bar Assn.’s membership, but they represent a grave breach of our organization’s core values,” the group’s board said in a statement.