Ex-Travel Agent in Murder Case Rearrested on Federal Charges

A former travel agent who just two months ago was acquitted of state murder charges in the 1994 slaying of another travel agent was rearrested Tuesday on federal charges based on the same crime.

Agents of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms, with assistance from Glendale police, arrested Garen Zakarian, 31, said Glendale police spokesman Chahe Keuroghelian.

The federal agents accused Zakarian of using a firearm to interfere with interstate commerce by stealing airline tickets at gunpoint from Glendale travel agent Benita Mikailian’s office Oct. 5, 1994, Keuroghelian said.

Mikailian was shot to death during the robbery, and a stack of vouchers for 80 one-way plane tickets from Los Angeles to France was stolen. Zakarian, a client of Mikailian’s, was accused by the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office of killing her to steal the tickets to save his ailing travel business.

But a Pasadena Superior Court jury in December found him not guilty under state law.

Zakarian was arrested at his home in Phelan, in San Bernardino County, where he had been living since his release from jail, and taken to the federal Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles. He was scheduled to be arraigned before a federal magistrate today.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s office confirmed that Zakarian had been arrested but could provide no details late Tuesday. Agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms could not be reached.

Attorney Malcolm Guleserian, who defended Zakarian against the murder charge, said he knew few details of the arrest Tuesday but was appalled by the development.

“I think this is purely retaliatory on the part of the people who couldn’t convict him,” Guleserian said. “He’s been acquitted of all these charges at the state court level. I can’t believe the federal government would get involved, would stoop this low.”

Zakarian’s sister, Anait, with whom he ran the Econo Trans travel agency in Glendale, was also charged with murder in the previous case, but she was mistakenly released from jail in July and has since vanished. State prosecutors have said they still want to try Anait for murder if she is caught.