A California State Bar court judge has recommended that a Los Angeles-area lawyer be disbarred for misappropriating $30,000 from a trust fund for survivors of the Armenian genocide to pay for her children’s law school.
Judge Donald Miles found Rita Mahdessian, 58, culpable of misappropriating funds from the Center for Armenian Remembrance, or CAR, a nonprofit she and her husband helped administer that shared an address with their Glendale law firm. CAR was among the nonprofits that received some of the proceeds from class action settlements in cases led by Mahdessian’s husband, Vartkes Boghos Yeghiayan, against life insurers who failed to pay out polices for people killed during the Armenian genocide of 1915-1918. Yeghiayan, 81, also faces disciplinary charges, but his case is being held in abeyance due to health issues.
