Attack on Turkish Restaurant Lands Two Men in Prison

Two California males had been sentenced this week to federal jail phrases for attacking 5 workers of a Turkish restaurant in Beverly Hills, Calif., in November 2020 due to their anger at Turkey’s assist of Azerbaijan in its battle with Armenia, federal prosecutors mentioned on Tuesday.

The boys, William Stepanyan, 23, of Glendale and Harutyun Harry Chalikyan, 24, of the Los Angeles neighborhood of Tujunga, had every pleaded responsible to at least one depend of conspiracy and one depend of committing a hate crime, federal prosecutors mentioned.

A federal choose on Monday sentenced Mr. Stepanyan to 5 years in jail and Mr. Chalikyan to fifteen months, based on an announcement from federal prosecutors. The boys had been additionally ordered by Choose Stephen V. Wilson of U.S. District Court docket to collectively pay $21,200 for harm to the Beverly Hills restaurant, officers mentioned.

Prosecutors had sought a sentence of seven years for Mr. Stepanyan and almost 5 years for Mr. Chalikyan, based on courtroom paperwork. Prosecutors wished an extended sentence for Mr. Stepanyan due to his legal historical past, which included a conviction for assault with a lethal weapon, based on courtroom paperwork.

“These defendants had been pushed by hate, and their actions had been deplorable,” Tracy L. Wilkison, america lawyer for the Central District of California, mentioned within the assertion. “The bodily accidents and emotional trauma to the victims can’t be understated. We hope that the sentences handed down at the moment will assist vindicate these harms.”

Tensions have lengthy existed between the Armenian and Turkish communities over the mass killings of Armenians greater than a century in the past, and the frayed relations have performed out intensely in Los Angeles, which is house to a big Armenian inhabitants.

In April 2021, President Biden broke with predecessors and declared the killing of 1.5 million Armenians by the previous Ottoman Empire a “genocide,” a classification that was largely symbolic however that had been sought by Armenian-People for many years.

Months earlier, on Nov. 4, 2020, the defendants and different males met in a grocery store car parking zone to “talk about a string of violent acts that had been dedicated towards the Armenian neighborhood within the previous days,” based on a sentencing memorandum by Jilbert Tahmazian, Mr. Chalikyan’s lawyer.

Mr. Chalikyan was drunk throughout this assembly and fired up over a six-week conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the contested Nagorno-Karabakh area that had erupted in late September and had killed 1000’s, based on the memorandum.

Prosecutors mentioned the combating brought on heightened tensions in Turkish and Armenian communities in america and led to quite a few protests and counterprotests in Los Angeles and elsewhere.

After a rally in Glendale, the 2 males and others drove to the Turkish restaurant — which was not named within the indictment — as a result of they thought it was symbolic of Turkey and believed Turkish individuals could be there, prosecutors mentioned.

Prosecutors mentioned in an indictment that every defendant threw at the very least one chair towards the victims, and considered one of them — it wasn’t clear from the indictment who — shouted, “We got here to kill you! We’ll kill you!” They each smashed glassware, Mr. Stepanyan ripped out pc terminals, and each males fled earlier than the authorities arrived, based on the indictment.

Prosecutors mentioned the assault brought on at the very least $20,000 in damages, and the victims suffered accidents, together with when an object struck one particular person on the again and when some victims fled, however particulars on the extent of accidents weren’t out there within the indictment.

Attorneys listed for each males couldn’t instantly be reached late Tuesday. However Mr. Tahmazian, Mr. Chalikyan’s lawyer, mentioned within the sentencing memorandum that many Armenians in Los Angeles are descendants of households who fled the genocide, and that some may need been triggered by the “eerie parallels” of Turkey’s rhetoric throughout the Azerbaijan battle” to that of the Ottoman Empire throughout the genocide.

Mr. Chalikyan’s actions, he argued, had been “an aberration” in distinction to his common demeanor and “resulting from world occasions which evoked a frenzied hysteria inside him.”