Mistrial Declared in Glendale Travel Agent Case

A federal judge declared a mistrial Wednesday in the trial of Garen Zakarian, the former Glendale travel agent who was acquitted in state court last December on charges that he murdered a business rival.

Federal prosecutors said they have yet to decide whether to retry Zakarian.

After deliberating four days, an eight-woman, four-man jury was unable to reach verdicts on robbery, firearms and obstruction of interstate commerce charges against Zakarian, 31.

Earlier this week, the jury in the same case had convicted Zakarian on two gun-possession charges. He faces a maximum of 10 years in prison on each conviction.

Zakarian’s sister, Anait Zakarian, was also charged with murder but was mistakenly released from jail while awaiting trial. She is believed to have fled the country.

In both trials, Zakarian’s attorney, Malcolm Guleserian, contended his client was “set up” by Armenian mafia operatives who wanted to shut down his business, which catered to Armenian travelers.

“He’s relieved, but it’s still antic-climactic, because he still doesn’t know if he’s going to be retried,” Guleserian said Wednesday after jurors told U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson they were deadlocked on the remaining charges.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Christopher Tayback, who prosecuted the case, said a decision whether to prosecute Zakarian will again be made within two weeks by U.S. Atty. Nora Manella.

During a two-week trial that ended Wednesday, Tayback charged that on Oct. 5, 1994, Zakarian killed Mikailian, owner of the Travel Town agency in Glendale, in order to steal $42,000 worth of airline tickets. Zakarian needed the tickets to avoid stranding 80 clients in Paris en route from Armenia to Los Angeles, and to keep afloat his struggling business, Econo Trans of Glendale, Tayback said.

Tayback said Mikailian had refused to sell Zakarian the 80 Northwest Airlines tickets after learning he did not have the money to pay for them. On the day of the killing, he said, Zakarian went to Mikailian’s office after hours, shot her five times in the chest with a silencer-equipped .380 Beretta. Then, in his haste, he mistakenly stole a stack of receipts for the plane tickets, instead of the tickets themselves.

Among the evidence presented at the trial were three of Zakarian’s fingerprints--one on the silencer, one on the door to Mikailian’s office, and one on the ticket receipts.

Tayback said Wednesday he was disappointed by the outcome, but declined to speculate why the jury would not convict Zakarian.

“It’s hard to know exactly how jurors perceive a case at the time you’re trying it,” he said. “They clearly understood that [Zakarian] possessed the weapons that were associated with the murder. But I think the evidence supports all the charges for which he was tried.”

Zakarian is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 9 for his convictions on charges of possession of a firearm and a silencer with the serial numbers obliterated.

But Guleserian he expects his client, who has served 20 months in jail while awaiting both the state and federal trials, will do little or no additional time.