Suspect in Fatal Arson Hid Crime Record From INS

A father accused of killing his wife and six children by setting fire to their Glendale apartment apparently gained entry to the United States by concealing a criminal record in his native Iran when he was questioned under oath, federal officials said Thursday.

Jorjik Avanesian, 40, charged with arson and seven counts of murder, has told police and others that he served eight months in an Iranian prison for stabbing his wife.

That crime should have disqualified him from the U.S. refugee program, which excludes “any alien convicted of a crime of moral turpitude,” a State Department spokeswoman said Thursday.

Every adult participant in the refugee program under which Avanesian and his family were admitted last year must sign an application form and a separate sworn affidavit stating whether they have a criminal record and then must answer the question a third time in a sworn interview statement, said Rosemary Melville, Immigration and Naturalization Service deputy district director in Los Angeles.

“We make every effort, of course, to screen out anybody who’s got a criminal record,” she said, and any statement by an applicant to that effect triggers a long review process and background check.

Melville would not say that Avanesian failed to disclose his criminal record, since INS officials were unable Thursday to locate the family’s file.

But a copy of the State Department’s file on the family’s immigration request, which is in the hands of a nonprofit resettlement organization in Los Angeles, contains no reference to his having a criminal record, and there is no indication of the delays such an investigation would have caused, the agency’s director said Thursday.

Svetlana Mollazadeh, director of the International Rescue Committee’s Los Angeles Resettlement Office, said she first learned about Avanesian’s imprisonment in Iran from Avanesian’s sister on Tuesday, the day of the fire. The resettlement agency helped the family apply for welfare and enroll in English classes.

Generally, the INS relies on the applicant to tell the truth when asked about a criminal record, Melville said, but she added that it was unlikely any statements were independently verified.

“By the nature of somebody being in a refugee camp we are very limited in what we can do to check anybody’s record,” she said.

Last year, about 99,000 people--978 from Iran--were admitted to the United States as refugees, defined as immigrants having “a well-founded fear of persecution on the grounds of race, religion, nationality or membership in a social group or political opinion,” the State Department spokeswoman said.

According to the department’s records, the Avanesian family--Armenians from Iran--applied for admission to the United States at the refugee processing center in Istanbul, Turkey, and were interviewed there last Aug. 22 by the INS.

Mollazadeh said she thought the couple’s refugee status could have been based on the fact that they were Christians in a Muslim country.

“The wife was Muslim and converted to Christianity,” Mollazadeh said. “This is a cause of being persecuted.”

Granted refugee status, the family of eight flew to Los Angeles on Sept. 28 after spending eight months in Turkey.

When she first dealt with them, Mollazadeh said, she thought the Avanesians were a well-adjusted family with a bright future. “They were a very normal family,” she said.

Mollazadeh said Avanesian’s wife, Turan, was waiting for a copy of her Iranian nursing license and planned to take the test to become licensed in California. Meanwhile, she was looking for work as a caretaker for an elderly person.

Jorjik Avanesian, a clerical worker and electrical repairman in Iran, showed less enthusiasm for the job search, Mollazadeh said.

Avanesian, his hands and one side of his face heavily bandaged because of burns, appeared in Glendale Municipal Court on Thursday for a scheduled arraignment, but was granted a delay in entering a plea.

He nodded as a court interpreter relayed orders from Judge Joseph F. De Vanon, who postponed the proceeding until Feb. 21, pending the appointment of a permanent public defender to represent Avanesian.

During his brief court appearance, the small, gray-haired suspect was unshaven and dressed in yellow Los Angeles County jail clothes.

Arson and murder charges filed against Avanesian on Wednesday by the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office include special circumstances, meaning he could be sentenced to death if convicted.

The judge ordered Avanesian held without bail.

Avanesian, who Glendale police said admitted setting the fire, was arrested Tuesday afternoon after he met with the editor of a Farsi-language newspaper in Encino.

Glendale police said Avanesian confessed that he intended to kill his wife, who he claimed had been unfaithful to him, and their children. He told investigators that he wanted the children dead because they were products of his wife.