LOS ANGELES (AP) - A man who made a fortune selling weapons to various nations was sentenced in federal court to time served for committing wire fraud.
Sarkis Soghanalian, 71, was arrested in December 1999 for allegedly stealing and cashing blank checks from several banks for more than dlrs 3 million. He pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud in exchange for the other charges
being dropped.
U.S. District Court Judge Ronald Lew sentenced Soghanalian to 10 months, equaling the time he had spent in jail before being released last October. He could have been sentenced to as much as five years in prison. Soghanalian has brokered millions of dollars worth of arms deals to clients including the Christian militia during the
Lebanese civil war and Argentina during the Falklands war ith Britain.
He was sentenced to prison in the early 1990s for conspiring to sell combat helicopters and rocket launchers o Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war. Sohanalian, who is also known for his philanthropy, has donated millions of dollars to such projects as helping build an elementary school in Pasadena and airlifting supplies donated by the local Armenian community to survivors of the 1988 earthquake in Armenia.