Arson Suspect Hid Iran Jail Record, Officials Say

A father who allegedly set fire to his apartment this week, killing his wife and six children, apparently gained entry to the United States by concealing a criminal record in his native Iran when he was questioned under oath, immigration and State Department officials said Thursday.

Jorjik Avanesian, 40, who has been 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 spokeswoman for the State Department 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, INS deputy district director in Los Angeles.

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

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

However, 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 Avanesian’s having a criminal record and there is no indication of the delays such an investigation would have caused, the agency’s director said.

She learned about Avanesian’s imprisonment in Iran from Avanesian’s sister on Tuesday, the day of the fire, said Svetlana Mollazadeh, director of the International Rescue Committee’s Los Angeles resettlement office, which 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 it was unlikely that 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, approximately 99,000 people--978 from Iran--were admitted to the United States as refugees, who are defined as aliens 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 who came 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 Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Mollazadeh said she thought the couple’s refugee status could have been based on their being 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. “He was very quiet.”

Mollazadeh said Avanesian’s wife, Turan, was waiting for a copy of her Iranian nursing license and planned to take the exam to become licensed in California. In the meantime, 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.

“With him, it was, ‘Yeah, no problem, OK.’ ”

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

During his brief court appearance, the small, gray-haired suspect was unshaven and clad in yellow Los Angeles County Jail clothing.

Arson and murder charges filed Wednesday against Avanesian by the Los Angeles district attorney’s office include special circumstances, opening the possibility of a death sentence if he is convicted.

The judge ordered Avanesian held without bail.

Outside the courtroom, Avanesian’s temporary attorney, Public Defender Casey Lilienfeld, expressed concern that his client may have encountered “some trouble” from other prisoners at the County Jail. It was unclear if any physical confrontation occurred, he said.

“I don’t know if he was attacked by any other inmates,” Lilienfeld said. “We’re going to do everything we can to make sure he’s housed in a safe manner.”

The district attorney’s office and the Sheriff’s Department said they weren’t aware of any problems between Avanesian and other prisoners.

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.

Police have said Avanesian confessed that he intended to kill his wife, with whom he’d had long-standing marital problems, and their children, because he said they were products of his wife.

Avanesian believed his wife took aphrodisiacs to keep her sexually aroused for other men and may have encouraged their 17-year-old daughter to have sex with one of her lovers, according to a private detective who said Avanesian tried to hire him to follow the wife.

At the family’s apartment in the Harvard Terrace building on East Harvard Street on Thursday, cleanup workers examined the blackened walls, a burned and soot-covered sofa and a barely recognizable stove in what had been the kitchen.

Outside the building, mourners left flowers along a ledge. Neighbors and passersby stood looking at the charred edifice, shaking their heads in disbelief.

One young man, who said he was a distant relative of Avanesian, said he last saw him about three months ago. Avanesian seemed troubled, but the man said he hesitated to ask him for details.

“I didn’t want to involve myself. He was nervous. . . . [But] who can do this?”