FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

 v. 

VAHE DADYAN, 

Defendant-Appellant.

No. 21-50237 

D.C. No. 

2:20-cr-00579-

SVW-8 

OPINION

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

 v. 

ARTUR AYVAZYAN, AKA Arthur 

Ayvazyan, 

Defendant-Appellant.

No. 21-50302 

D.C. Nos. 

2:20-cr-00579-

SVW-3 

2:20-cr-00579-

SVW 

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Central District of California

Stephen V. Wilson, District Judge, Presiding
2 USA V. DADYAN

Argued and Submitted June 8, 2023 

Pasadena, California

Filed August 7, 2023 

Before: MILAN D. SMITH, JR. and ROOPALI H. 

DESAI, Circuit Judges, and CAROL BAGLEY AMON,

*

District Judge.

Opinion by Judge Milan D. Smith, Jr.

SUMMARY**

Criminal Law

The panel affirmed in part and vacated in part the district 

court’s imposition of restitution obligations on Vahe Dadyan 

and Artur Ayvazyan following their convictions of various 

offenses stemming from an eight-person conspiracy to 

fraudulently obtain and launder millions of dollars in federal 

Covid-relief funds that were intended to assist businesses 

impacted by the pandemic. 

The panel held that, under the Mandatory Victims 

Restitution Act (MVRA), the district court properly imposed 

* The Honorable Carol Bagley Amon, United States District Judge for 

the Eastern District of New York, sitting by designation.

** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has 

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.
USA V. DADYAN 3

restitution in the full amount of the loss caused by the 

conspiracy instead of just the loss caused by the fraudulent 

loan applications Vahe and Artur personally played a role in 

submitting.

As to Artur, the panel held that the district court properly 

ordered a restitution amount under the MVRA based on the 

“value” of fraudulently obtained property, which exceeded 

the amount of “actual loss” the district court found when 

sentencing him under U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1(b)(1). Artur’s 

proposed rule to make a Guidelines-loss finding a hard cap 

on a restitution calculation could not be squared with Ninth 

Circuit precedent, or with the text and purpose of the 

MVRA.

The panel held that Artur failed to establish that the 

district court clearly erred in calculating the amount of 

restitution.

The panel held that precedent foreclosed Artur’s 

argument that his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights to due 

process and a jury trial required that a jury, not a district 

judge, find all facts underpinning restitution beyond a 

reasonable doubt.

As to Vahe, the panel vacated and remanded for the 

district court to amend his judgment and commitment order 

to specify, as the government conceded, that his restitution 

obligation runs jointly and severally with those of his four 

trial co-defendants.

In separately filed memorandum dispositions, the panel 

affirmed Vahe and Artur’s jury convictions, affirmed the 

district court’s application of the Sentencing Guidelines to 

Artur, and vacated and remanded for Artur’s resentencing 
4 USA V. DADYAN

because the district court plainly erred by failing to invite his 

allocution. 

COUNSEL

Verna J. Wefald (argued), Law Office of Verna Wefald, 

Pasadena, California, for Defendant-Appellant Vahe 

Dadyan. 

Kathryn A. Young (argued), Deputy Federal Public 

Defender; Cuauhtemoc Ortega, Federal Public Defender; 

Federal Public Defender’s Office, Los Angeles, California; 

for Defendant-Appellant Artur Ayvazyan. 

David M. Lieberman (argued) and Christopher Fenton, 

Attorneys, Appellate and Fraud Sections; Lisa H. Miller, 

Deputy Assistant Attorney General; Kenneth A. Polite, Jr., 

Assistant Attorney General; E. Martin Estrada, United States 

Attorney; Criminal Division, United States Department of 

Justice, United States Attorney’s Office; Washington, D.C.; 

Daniel G. Boyle and Scott Paetty, Assistant United States 

Attorneys; Bram M. Alden, Criminal Appeals Section Chief; 

United States Department of Justice, United States 

Attorney’s Office; Los Angeles, California; Jeremy R. 

Sanders, Trial Attorney; United States Department of 

Justice; New York, New York; for Plaintiff-Appellee.
USA V. DADYAN 5

OPINION

M. SMITH, Circuit Judge:

Vahe Dadyan and Artur Ayvazyan were convicted of 

various offenses stemming from an eight-person conspiracy 

to fraudulently obtain and launder millions of dollars in 

federal Covid-relief funds that were intended to assist 

businesses impacted by the pandemic. On appeal, Vahe and 

Artur challenge their restitution obligations on both legal and 

factual grounds. We affirm their restitution obligations, 

except that we vacate and remand for Vahe’s judgment and

commitment order to be amended to specify that, as all 

parties agree, his restitution obligation runs jointly and 

severally with those of his trial co-codefendants.

1

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

In March 2020, the federal government provided two

lifelines to businesses impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. 

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security

(CARES) Act established the Paycheck Protection Program

(PPP), which made billions of dollars in governmentguaranteed loans available to qualifying businesses for 

payroll retention and other authorized expenses. Pub. L. No. 

116-136, § 1102, 134 Stat. 281, 286–94 (2020). The

CARES Act also authorized the Small Business 

Administration, through the Economic Injury Disaster Loans 

(EIDL) program, to make low-interest loans to qualifying 

1 In separately filed memorandum dispositions, we affirm Vahe and 

Artur’s jury convictions, affirm the district court’s application of the 

Sentencing Guidelines to Artur, and vacate and remand for Artur’s

resentencing because the district court plainly erred by failing to invite 

his allocution. 
6 USA V. DADYAN

businesses for certain authorized expenses, including

providing sick leave to employees who contracted Covid and

maintaining payroll during Covid-related business 

disruptions. Id. § 1110, 306–08. 

Vahe, Artur, and six other individuals conspired to 

submit fraudulent PPP and EIDL loan applications and, once 

those loan applications were approved, to launder the 

fraudulently obtained funds.2 Vahe, for example, signed a 

$157,500 PPP loan application stating that his business had 

eleven employees and average monthly payroll expenses of 

$63,000—but, in reality, his business had no employees and

no payroll expenses. Similarly, Artur (among other things) 

submitted a $124,000 PPP loan application containing false 

payroll information. Nor did Vahe and Artur use the PPP 

funds for authorized business expenses. Instead, after taking 

a circuitous route, the bulk of Vahe’s and Artur’s PPP funds 

ended up facilitating co-conspirators’ multi-million-dollar 

real estate transactions.

A jury convicted Vahe of conspiracy to commit bank and 

wire fraud (18 U.S.C. §§ 1343–1344, 1349); conspiracy to 

commit money laundering (id. § 1956(h)); and substantive 

counts of wire fraud, bank fraud, and concealment money 

laundering (id. §§ 1343–1344, 1956(a)(1)(B)(i)). The 

district court sentenced Vahe to one year and one day in 

prison and held him jointly and severally liable along with 

his trial co-defendants for $10,706,188.13 in restitution—

with that figure representing the district court’s calculation 

2 Because Vahe and Artur are related to and share the same last names

as some of their co-conspirators, we refer to them by their first names.
USA V. DADYAN 7

of all losses the conspiracy directly and proximately caused 

to victims after Vahe joined it.3

A jury convicted Artur of conspiracy to commit bank and 

wire fraud (18 U.S.C. §§ 1343–1344, 1349); conspiracy to 

commit concealment money laundering (id. § 1956(h));

substantive counts of wire and bank fraud (id. §§ 1343–

1344); and aggravated identity theft (id. § 1028A(a)(1)). 

The district court sentenced Artur to five years in prison and 

held him jointly and severally liable along with his trial codefendants for $17,723,141.26 in restitution—with that 

figure representing the district court’s calculation of all 

losses the conspiracy directly and proximately caused to 

victims. Vahe and Artur timely appealed.

JURISDICTION AND STANDARD OF REVIEW

We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. “The 

legality of a restitution order is reviewed de novo, as is the 

district court’s valuation methodology. If the order is within 

statutory bounds, then the restitution calculation is reviewed 

for abuse of discretion, with any underlying factual findings 

reviewed for clear error.” United States v. Gagarin, 950 

F.3d 596, 607 (9th Cir. 2020) (cleaned up).

ANALYSIS

I. Co-Conspirator Liability

Vahe and Artur argue that the district court erred as a 

matter of law by imposing restitution in the full amount of 

loss caused by the conspiracy instead of just the loss caused 

by the fraudulent loan applications they personally played a 

3 As explained below, the parties agree that Vahe’s restitution obligation 

runs jointly and severally with his trial co-defendants, but his current 

judgment and commitment order does not reflect that. Infra section V.
8 USA V. DADYAN

role in submitting.4 We reject this argument as foreclosed 

by precedent: Where a defendant is convicted of conspiracy, 

the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act (MVRA) authorizes 

a district court to hold the defendant jointly and severally 

liable, see 18 U.S.C. § 3664(h), “for all [victims] harmed by 

the entire scheme,” United States v. Riley, 335 F.3d 919, 931 

(9th Cir. 2003) (emphasis added).

In Riley, the defendant pled guilty to, among other 

offenses, conspiracy to produce fictitious financial

instruments (there, checks and money orders). Id. at 923–

25. Challenging his restitution obligation, the defendant 

argued that “he should not be held accountable for the losses 

caused by his coconspirators’ check cashing”—that is, his 

co-conspirators’ conduct within the scope of and in 

furtherance of the conspiracy he joined. Id. at 931. We 

rejected this argument and held: “[I]n a case involving a 

conspiracy or scheme, restitution may be ordered for all 

persons harmed by the entire scheme. . . . A conspirator is 

vicariously liable for reasonably foreseeable substantive 

crimes committed by a coconspirator in furtherance of the 

conspiracy.” Id. at 931–32. So too here: The district court 

did not err by holding Vahe and Artur jointly and severally 

liable for restitution in the full amount of loss that the entire 

conspiracy caused.

5

4 Vahe’s restitution obligation (about $10.7 million) is less than Artur’s 

(about $17.7 million) because the district court excluded from Vahe’s 

obligation all losses caused before Vahe joined the conspiracy. 

5 This is not to suggest that a district court must follow the approach 

taken here. Instead, a district court has a choice where it “finds that more 

than 1 defendant has contributed to the loss of a victim.” 18 U.S.C. 

§ 3664(h). A court may, as the district court did here, hold each 
USA V. DADYAN 9

II. Different Restitution and Guidelines-Loss

Calculations

Artur argues that the district court erred as a matter of 

law by ordering a restitution amount (about $17.7 million) 

that exceeded the amount of loss the district court found 

when sentencing him (more than $1.5 million but less $3.5 

million). As above, our precedent forecloses this argument: 

There is no categorical rule that restitution must be equal to 

or less than the amount of loss found when applying

Sentencing Guidelines § 2B1.1(b)(1) or similar loss-based 

Guidelines sections.

As Artur’s argument suggests, MVRA restitution

calculations in property-deprivation cases and Guidelines 

section 2B1.1(b)(1) loss calculations do share common 

ground. When calculating MVRA restitution for a propertybased offense and the “return of the [fraudulently obtained] 

property . . . is impossible, impracticable, or inadequate,” the 

district court “shall require” the defendant to pay “the value

of the property.” 18 U.S.C. § 3663A(b)(1)(B) (emphasis 

added). When calculating the Guidelines range for a 

defendant convicted of a standard property-deprivation 

crime, a district court increases the defendant’s Guidelines 

range to account for the amount of “loss” caused, with loss 

defined as the greater of the “actual” or “intended” amount 

of “pecuniary harm.” U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1(b)(1) & Application 

Note 3(A). Given the high-level similarity of these terms 

(“value” of fraudulently obtained property and “pecuniary 

harm”), restitution and Guidelines-loss figures often mirror 

one another when the Guidelines calculation is based on 

actual (rather than intended) loss. See United States v. 

defendant jointly and severally “liable for payment of the full amount of 

restitution,” or it “may apportion liability among the defendants.” Id.
10 USA V. DADYAN

Lawrence, 189 F.3d 838, 842 (9th Cir. 1999) ($574,700 for 

both); cf. United States v. Anderson, 741 F.3d 938, 951 (9th 

Cir. 2013) (Guidelines § 2B5.3(b)(1) loss of at least 

$200,000; restitution of $247,144). 

Moreover, some of our decisions include statements

equating restitution and actual loss. See, e.g., United States 

v. Begay, 33 F.4th 1081, 1096 (9th Cir. 2022) (“any award 

is limited to the victim’s actual losses” (citation omitted)); 

United States v. Rizk, 660 F.3d 1125, 1137 (9th Cir. 2011) 

(“[a] district court may not order restitution such that victims 

will receive an amount greater than their actual losses”); 

United States v. Stoddard, 150 F.3d 1140, 1147 (9th Cir. 

1998) (“[r]estitution can only be based on actual loss”). As 

we have done before, “[w]e acknowledge that [these 

decisions] use of the phrase ‘actual loss’ in discussion of 

restitution generates some confusion.” United States v. 

Nosal, 844 F.3d 1024, 1046–47 (9th Cir. 2016) (citation 

omitted). That is because those decisions used “actual loss” 

in the colloquial sense, not necessarily tethered to a 

Guidelines calculation. The point being emphasized in those 

statements is that victims may not receive restitution that 

exceeds the losses they actually suffered.

But those statements and the noted similarities between 

restitution and Guidelines loss do not add up to the 

categorical rule, advanced by Artur, that once a court 

determines “actual loss” for Sentencing Guidelines 

purposes, its restitution determination cannot exceed that 

amount. Instead, when our court has actually been presented 

with Artur’s categorical argument, we have rejected it. In 

Nosal, we explained: “We must initially decide whether, as 

[the defendant] urges, the restitution award is invalid 

because it exceeds the actual loss that the district court 

determined for the purposes of the Sentencing Guidelines 
USA V. DADYAN 11

U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1(b) . . . . The answer to that question is 

found in our observation that ‘calculating loss under the 

guidelines is not necessarily identical to loss calculation for 

purposes of restitution.’” Id. at 1046 (citation omitted). 

Indeed, we have cautioned district courts to not reflexively 

“rely on [their] calculation of the loss under the Sentencing 

Guidelines to determine the amount of restitution as the two 

measures serve different purposes and utilize different 

calculation methods.” Anderson, 741 F.3d at 952; see also

United States v. Gossi, 608 F.3d 574, 582 (9th Cir. 2010)

(“we reject [the defendant’s] argument that we should look 

to the advisory Sentencing Guidelines for calculating the 

victim’s losses”). Artur’s proposed categorial rule, which 

would make a Guidelines-loss finding a hard cap on a 

restitution calculation, cannot be squared with our court’s 

precedent.

Nor can Artur’s proposed categorical rule be squared 

with the text and purpose of the MVRA. The MVRA does 

not just set forth the high-level guidance that restitution 

should equal the “value” of fraudulently obtained property; 

it provides specific instructions on how to calculate “value” 

in specific situations—sometimes doing so in ways that 

expressly contradict the Guidelines’ approach to calculating 

loss. Consider the following two examples: The MVRA

requires compensation for “expenses incurred during 

participation in the investigation,” while Guidelines 

commentary provides that “[l]oss shall not include . . . costs 

incurred by victims primarily to aid the government in[] the 

prosecution and criminal investigation of an offense.” 

Nosal, 844 F.3d at 1046–47 (quoting 18 U.S.C. 

§ 3663A(b)(4); U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1 Application Note 

3(D)(ii)). Similarly, the MVRA “can include prejudgment 

interest,” United States v. Catherine, 55 F.3d 1462, 1465 
12 USA V. DADYAN

(9th Cir. 1995), while Guidelines commentary provides that 

“[l]oss shall not include . . . interest of any kind,” U.S.S.G.

§ 2B1.1 Application Note 3(D)(i). In each example, the 

MVRA not only tolerates but requires a restitution 

calculation that exceeds Guidelines loss.

That is not to suggest that a large discrepancy will always

be without significance. An unexplained discrepancy may, 

in certain cases, facilitate a defendant’s clear-error challenge

to his or her restitution obligation—though we caution 

against overreliance on a discrepancy, as it does not indicate

which figure, restitution or Guidelines loss, might be 

erroneous.

6 Or, an unexplained discrepancy not rooted in 

statutory differences might provide a hint that the district 

court included a non-cognizable form of loss in its restitution 

calculation. But to reiterate our holding: A discrepancy, 

standing alone, does not establish legal error.

III.Clear-Error Challenge 

We now turn to and reject Artur’s clear-error challenge. 

In the district court, “[a]ny dispute as to the proper amount 

or type of restitution shall be resolved by the court by the 

preponderance of the evidence,” with the government 

bearing “[t]he burden of demonstrating the amount of loss 

sustained by a victim as a result of the offense.” 18 U.S.C. 

§ 3664(e). In resolving such a dispute, the district court must 

rely on “evidence that possesses sufficient indicia of 

6 Here, for instance, the government suggested at oral argument that the 

district court’s Guidelines loss calculation constituted procedural error,

before clarifying that it was not raising that argument on appeal. 

“Because the government did not take an appeal” on this issue and Artur

“has nothing to gain from a higher advisory guidelines range,” we 

express no view on whether the district court committed procedural 

error. United States v. Dokich, 614 F.3d 314, 320 (7th Cir. 2010).
USA V. DADYAN 13

reliability to support its probable accuracy.” Anderson, 741 

F.3d at 951–52 (citation omitted); see also United States v. 

Waknine, 543 F.3d 546, 557–58 (9th Cir. 2008) (victim 

affidavits in question “were too summary and too conclusory 

to be sufficiently reliable in the face of [the defendant’s] 

objections”). “[E]xact precision is not required and district 

courts do have a degree of flexibility in accounting for a 

victim’s complete losses.” Anderson, 741 F.3d at 954.

Accordingly, the district court is entitled to draw reasonable 

inferences when coming to its restitution calculation. See 

United States v. Walter-Eze, 869 F.3d 891, 914–15 (9th Cir. 

2017).

On appeal, a factual challenge to a restitution calculation 

is subject to clear-error review. Gagarin, 950 F.3d at 607. 

Broad, unsupported contentions of inaccuracy will generally 

not overcome that deferential standard of review. A

defendant-appellant must undermine the reliability of 

specific evidence on which the district court relied or 

undermine specific factual underpinnings of the calculation. 

See Waknine, 543 F.3d at 557–58 (clear error to rely on 

“summary and . . . conclusory” victim affidavits when 

defendant challenged affidavits’ assertions); United States v. 

Matsumaru, 244 F.3d 1092, 1108–09 (9th Cir. 2001) (clear 

error to not discount from calculation the value that the

victim did receive in the fraudulent transaction).

Here, the district court elected not to calculate restitution 

at the time of sentencing and instead ordered supplemental 

briefing. The government largely rested on its prior papers 

and a declaration that attached as an exhibit a table of over

one hundred fraudulently obtained loans the government 

contended were connected to the conspiracy. Artur argued 

in his supplemental brief that “many of th[e] loans” in the

government’s table “involv[ed] real companies” and that it 
14 USA V. DADYAN

is “unclear whether the loans were fraudulent at all or 

whether the third party simply had a [legitimate ] 

connection” to one of the co-conspirators. In a written order, 

the district court accepted the $17.7 million sum supported 

by the government’s table. Addressing Artur’s argument, 

the court explained that all the loans in the table “are 

connected to the conspiracy” in “a variety of ways.” The 

table includes loans that were obtained via applications

submitted in co-conspirators’ own names, using coconspirators’ known aliases, and from IP addresses traced to 

co-conspirators’ homes. Proceeds from included loans were 

traced to bank accounts and entities controlled by coconspirators. And the loans included in the table supported 

the bank and wire fraud counts on which the jury convicted.

On appeal, Artur again suggests in passing that it is 

“unclear” whether some loans included in the restitution 

amount were “fraudulent at all” and described the 

government’s table as resting on “cryptic summaries that did 

not explain [the loans’] illegality.” Artur does not identify 

any particular loans that he thinks were legitimate; nor does 

he identify which particular “summaries” are so “cryptic” 

that the loans they describe cannot be connected to the 

conspiracy. Moreover, Artur does not challenge any of the

district court’s detailed factual findings that connected the 

loans in the table to the conspiracy. Accordingly, Artur fell 

far short of establishing that the district court clearly erred in 

calculating restitution.

IV.Due Process and Jury-Trial Right

Artur argues that his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights

to due process and a jury trial require that a jury (not a district 

judge) find all facts underpinning restitution beyond a 

reasonable doubt (not by a preponderance of the evidence). 
USA V. DADYAN 15

Artur concedes that our precedent forecloses this argument, 

and he raises it before this panel only to preserve it. See

United States v. George, 949 F.3d 1181, 1188 (9th Cir. 

2020); United States v. Green, 722 F.3d 1146, 1148–51 (9th 

Cir. 2013).

V. Joint and Several Liability 

Vahe requests a limited remand instructing the district 

court to amend his judgment and commitment order to 

reflect that his restitution obligation runs jointly and 

severally with that of his trial co-defendants. The MVRA 

provides the district court with two options where it “finds 

that more than 1 defendant has contributed to the loss of a 

victim”: The “court may make each defendant liable for 

payment of the full amount of restitution or may apportion 

liability among the defendants.” 18 U.S.C. § 3664(h) 

(emphasis added). Here, the district court determined in an 

order addressing the restitution obligations of four of Vahe’s 

co-defendants that joint and several liability is appropriate. 

The judgment and commitment order for each of those four 

defendants further specifies that their restitution obligations

run jointly and severally. Yet Vahe’s judgment and 

commitment order does not so specify. The government 

concedes on appeal that Vahe’s restitution obligation runs 

jointly and severally and that a limited remand would be 

appropriate. Accordingly, we remand Vahe’s case on this 

narrow ground and instruct the district court to amend 

Vahe’s judgment and commitment order to specify, as 

everyone agrees, that his restitution obligation runs jointly 

and severally with those of his four trial co-defendants.

CONCLUSION

For the above reasons, we AFFIRM Vahe’s and Artur’s 

restitution obligations, except that we VACATE AND
16 USA V. DADYAN

REMAND for the district court to amend Vahe’s judgment 

and commitment order to specify that his obligation runs 

jointly and severally. We address in separately filed 

memorandum dispositions Vahe and Artur’s arguments 

regarding their jury convictions and Artur’s arguments 

regarding his sentencing.