SoCal men who attacked Turkish restaurant in Beverly Hills get federal prison sentences

Two males from Los Angeles County have been sentenced to federal jail after they pleaded responsible to assaulting 5 folks at a family-owned Turkish restaurant in Beverly Hills in 2020.

The lads, 23-year-old William Stepanyan of Glendale and 24-year-old Harutyun Harry Chalikyan of Tujunga, pleaded responsible in October to throwing chairs, shouting ethnic slurs and threatening to kill folks on the restaurant on Nov. 4, 2020.

The assault got here whereas “long-simmering tensions in Turkish and Armenian communities escalated” in the course of the conflict between Armenia and Turkey-backed Azerbaijan, the U.S. Division of Justice stated in a information launch.

“Earlier that day, Stepanyan despatched a textual content message saying that he deliberate to go ‘attempting to find [T]urks.’ … Upon arriving on the restaurant, Stepanyan and Chalikyan stormed inside, threw exhausting wood chairs on the victims, smashed glassware, destroyed a plexiglass barrier, and overturned tables. One of many defendants requested the victims, ‘Are you Turkish?’ and shouted, ‘We got here to kill you!  We’ll kill you!,’” the discharge stated.

Given the motivations of Chalikyan and Stepanyan, they pleaded responsible to a cost of committing a hate crime, in addition to a depend of conspiracy, the DOJ stated. Stepanyan was sentenced to 5 years in jail, whereas Chalikyan obtained a 15-month sentence.

They will even pay $21,200 in restitution for the assault, which damage three folks, together with one who misplaced feeling of their legs and collapses a number of occasions on account of the harm.

“Additionally, in the course of the assault, Stepanyan ripped out the restaurant’s pc terminals and stole a sufferer’s iPhone,” totaling at the very least $20,000 in harm, the discharge stated.

“These defendants have been pushed by hate, and their actions have been deplorable,” United States Lawyer Tracy L. Wilkison stated within the launch. “The bodily accidents and emotional trauma to the victims can’t be understated. We hope that the sentences handed down in the present day will assist vindicate these harms.”

“The victims on this case have been brutally attacked by the defendants who trampled their civil rights and certain brought on lasting psychological ache for nothing greater than the notion of the place they have been born,” added Kristi Johnson, the assistant director in control of the FBI’s Los Angeles Subject Workplace, within the launch. “The FBI is dedicated to investigating civil rights violations and holding accountable people who commit violent acts motivated by hate.”