By Steve Neavling
A retired FBI agent in California was found guilty by a jury of accepting at least $150,000 in gifts and cash bribes to provide sensitive law enforcement information to a man with ties to Armenian organized crime.
Babak Broumand, 56, of Lafayette was convicted of conspiracy, bribery of a public official, and monetary transaction in property derived from unlawful activity following an 11-day trial, the Justice Department said in a statement Tuesday.
Broumand, who joined the FBI in 1999, faces between 15 and 45 years in prison when he is sentenced in January.
Broumand was working on national security investigations in the bureau’s San Francisco office between 2015 and 2018, when he accepted cash, checks, private flights, a Ducati motorcycle, hotel stays, escorts, and meals.
In exchange, he searched law enforcement databases to notify Edgar Sargsyan if he or his criminal associates were under investigation.
To hide their crimes, Broumand falsely said Sargsyan was an FBI source and even wrote reports to keep up the appearance.
“Ensuring public confidence in those who investigate and enforce the law is paramount,” U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said in a statement. “By taking bribes and gifts from a person he knew was linked to organized crime, Mr. Broumand breached the public trust placed in him and violated his oath of office, something which simply cannot be tolerated. The FBI’s agents and staff work tirelessly every day to keep us safe, and I am proud that they partnered with our Office to ferret out this corruption.”
Don Alway, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office, said the bureau won’t tolerate corruption.
“The conviction of Mr. Broumand, a veteran FBI agent who chose greed over integrity and turned his back on the oath he swore to uphold, is proof that the FBI will root out corruption of any kind, to include veteran agents within its ranks,” Alway said. “This prosecution was the result of hard work by multiple partner agencies to work through the painful truth of having to investigate one of its own.”
