Immigration agent who accepted attorney’s bribes is identified

The former ICE agent who accepted bribes from an attorney to help defuse criminal probes has been identified as Felix Cisneros.

Cisneros, an 11-year veteran ICE agent, is the same individual who was embroiled in a scheme to help notorious crime boss Levon Termendzhyan get his associate to re-enter the United States in 2013. Termendzhyan was convicted last month in Utah on federal charges related to a $1 billion renewable fuel tax credit fraud scheme. Cisneros is also accused of accepting bribes by Beverly Hills attorney Edgar Sargsyan of Sargsyan & Associates and helping his family member and client enter the United States.

"The fact a court has previously heard evidence presented in a trial that directly relates to transactions at issue in the instant case makes the designation of the instant case and the Cisneros case as related cases even more appropriate," Sargsyan's attorney Robert E. Dugdale wrote in his notice filed Thursday. Dugdale, who is now partner at Kendall Brill & Kelly LLP, is a former supervising trial attorney with the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Central District of California.

"Since the facts giving rise to the allegation that Sargsyan bribed HSI Special Agent Cisneros overlap in both the instant case and the Cisneros case and another judge in this district is already familiar with those facts, the instant case qualifies for transfer as a related case," Dugdale wrote.

Cisneros was indicted and tried for accepting more than $25,000 in bribes from Sargsyan and lying about it to federal investigators, as well as aiding Termendzhyan's associate -- a Mexican national with a criminal record -- re-enter the United States in 2013 and lying about it. Cisneros was convicted and sentenced to 12 months in federal prison, after a four-day jury trial in 2018.

However, Cisneros was acquitted of making false statements relating to Sargsyan's briberies. Sargsyan, 39, who ran his law firm Sargsyan & Associates in Beverly Hills, agreed last week to cooperate with investigators.

Sargsyan admitted to bribing FBI agents from 2015 to 2017 to obtain information from law enforcement databases to protect him from criminal probes. USA v. Sargsyan, 2:20-CR-00190 (C.D. Cal., filed April 27, 2020). He has since agreed to plead guilty to five felony counts.