Life in prison for man convicted of killing ex-boyfriend to collect $2.5 million life insurance policy
A 37-year-old man convicted of killing his ex-boyfriend, a Glendale resident, to collect on his $2.5-million life insurance policy was sentenced Thursday to life in state prison without the possibility of parole, officials said.
In June, a jury found Hovanes “John” Maskovian guilty of first-degree murder and attempted kidnapping in connection with the 2013 beating and fatal shooting of 33-year-old Joshua West.
Jurors also found true the special-circumstance allegations of lying in wait, murder for financial gain and murder during an attempted kidnapping.
Maskovian’s younger brother, Hachik “Kriss” Maskovian, 31, was found guilty by a separate jury of the same charges, while a third man, Nazaret “Nick” Bayamdzhyan, 22, is awaiting trial, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.
The younger Maskovian is slated to be sentenced today. .
On April 24, 2013, the brothers used a story about acquiring a cellphone to lure West to Sun Valley, where he was brutally beaten, stabbed, bitten, run over by a car and shot once through his heart. West’s body, with slash wounds on his throat, a bite mark on his arm and a broken right leg, was dumped on a Sun Valley road.
Hovanes Maskovian and West dated for about seven years, according to West’s sister. After they broke up in December 2012, just months before the murder, they continued to live together in their Glendale apartment out of convenience, said West’s father, Joseph DeRobbio.
Investigators later found out that Hovanes Maskovian called a State Farm insurance agent the day before the murder to ask about his and West’s insurance policies. The agent returned his call the next day and let him know their policies were OK.
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Alene Tchekmedyian, alene.tchekmedyian@latimes.com
Twitter: @atchek
