Gugasyan

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

I. Facts

Noble Investments LLC owns property on North Elm Street in Beverly Hills, California. The company’s president is Mark Gabay (Gabay). In January 2017 and again in February 2017, someone pretending to be Gabay applied for two loans totaling nearly $4 million, each loan to be secured by deeds of trust against the Elm Street property. For each loan, the person lined up Finance for Americans Corp. (Finance) as the broker, Lone Oak Fund, LLC as the lender, and North American Title Company, Inc. (North American) as the escrow holder. From its list of preapproved notaries, North American called Jack Aintablian (Aintablian), doing business as “Jack the Notary,” to notarize the two deeds of trust. On January 16, 2017, and then on February 17, 2017, Aintablian tasked one of his contractors, Egya Nubar Gugasyan (Gugasyan), with acting as notary for the two deeds of trust.

3 Gugasyan’s surety, whose job it was to insure against any errors by the notary, was Western Surety Company (Western). During each appointment, a person purporting to be Gabay appeared and provided Gugasyan a California driver’s license (No. B8141711) as proof of his identity.…