UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 21-50237

Plaintiff-Appellee, D.C. No. 2:20-cr-00579- v. SVW-8 VAHE DADYAN, OPINION Defendant-Appellant.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 21-50302

Plaintiff-Appellee, D.C. Nos. 2:20-cr-00579- v. SVW-3 2:20-cr-00579- ARTUR AYVAZYAN, AKA Arthur SVW Ayvazyan,

Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California Stephen V. Wilson, District Judge, Presiding 2 USA V. DADYAN

Argued and Submitted June 8, 2023 Pasadena, California

Filed August 7, 2023

Before: MILAN D. SMITH, JR. and ROOPALI H. DESAI, Circuit Judges, and CAROL BAGLEY AMON, * District Judge.

Opinion by Judge Milan D. Smith, Jr.

SUMMARY **

Criminal Law

The panel affirmed in part and vacated in part the district court’s imposition of restitution obligations on Vahe Dadyan and Artur Ayvazyan following their convictions of various offenses stemming from an eight-person conspiracy to fraudulently obtain and launder millions of dollars in federal Covid-relief funds that were intended to assist businesses impacted by the pandemic. The panel held that, under the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act (MVRA), the district court properly imposed * The Honorable Carol Bagley Amon, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of New York, sitting by designation. ** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader. USA V. DADYAN 3

restitution in the full amount of the loss caused by the conspiracy instead of just the loss caused by the fraudulent loan applications Vahe and Artur personally played a role in submitting. As to Artur, the panel held that the district court properly ordered a restitution amount under the MVRA based on the “value” of fraudulently obtained property, which exceeded the amount of “actual loss” the district court found when sentencing him under U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1(b)(1). Artur’s proposed rule to make a Guidelines-loss finding a hard cap on a restitution calculation could not be squared with Ninth Circuit precedent, or with the text and purpose of the MVRA. The panel held that Artur failed to establish that the district court clearly erred in calculating the amount of restitution. The panel held that precedent foreclosed Artur’s argument that his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights to due process and a jury trial required that a jury, not a district judge, find all facts underpinning restitution beyond a reasonable doubt. As to Vahe, the panel vacated and remanded for the district court to amend his judgment and commitment order to specify, as the government conceded, that his restitution obligation runs jointly and severally with those of his four trial co-defendants. In separately filed memorandum dispositions, the panel affirmed Vahe and Artur’s jury convictions, affirmed the district court’s application of the Sentencing Guidelines to Artur, and vacated and remanded for Artur’s resentencing 4 USA V. DADYAN

because the district court plainly erred by failing to invite his allocution.

COUNSEL Verna J. Wefald (argued), Law Office of Verna Wefald, Pasadena, California, for Defendant-Appellant Vahe Dadyan. Kathryn A. Young (argued), Deputy Federal Public Defen