LEGISLATORS AID RECOVERY OF ARMENIANS’ ASSETS
by E.J. Schultz Bee Capitol Bureau

Fresno Bee (California)
August 30, 2006 Wednesday
FINAL EDITION

Lawyers seeking to recover millions of dollars in bank deposits for
Armenian genocide victims are getting some help this week from state
lawmakers.

A class-action lawsuit filed against two German banks seeks the
return of cash, bonds, gold jewelry and other assets that lawyers
believe are owed to an estimated 2,000 heirs of genocide victims,
including some possibly living in the San Joaquin Valley, home of
thousands of Armenian-Americans.

Senate Bill 1524 by Sen. Chuck Poochigian, R-Fresno, and Sen. Jackie
Speier, D-Hillsborough — both of Armenian decent — would extend
the statute of limitations for such claims until 2016. It passed the
Assembly on Monday on a 77-0 vote and will likely pass the Senate
before the session ends Thursday.

Gov. Schwarzenegger supports the bill, according to his office.

The lawsuit was filed earlier this year on behalf of several Armenians
living in Southern California. Lawyers have argued that the plaintiffs
are free to sue under current law, but attorneys for the defendants
have replied that the statute of limitations prohibits the action,
said Vartkes Yeghiayan, a Los Angeles-area attorney representing
the Armenians.

If the bill were to become law, it "would certainly fortify our
position," Yeghiayan said.

Deutsche Bank A.G., one of the two banks sued, did not return a call
for comment. The other bank sued is Dresdner Bank A.G.

The bill has already cleared the Legislature once this year. But it
was tied to another bill that would have allowed Mexican-American
victims of a 1930s deportation campaign to seek damages for being
forcibly sent back to Mexico. The repatriation was sometimes violent,
as immigrants were taken across the border on trucks, buses and trains,
according to the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund,
which backed the bill.

Schwarzenegger vetoed the Mexican deportation bill last week, arguing
that it would have allowed "private litigation of potentially thousands
of claims against the state, local governments and private citizens."

The governor did not act on the Armenian bill, allowing lawmakers to
pull it back and remove the hook to the Mexican bill. Sen. Joe Dunn,
D-Santa Ana, who led the effort to link the two bills, criticized
Republicans for supporting the Armenian bill but rejecting the
Mexican bill.

"I have been consistently concerned about the hypocrisy that has shown
up on the Senate floor from my Republican colleagues on these two
bills," said Dunn, who supports the Armenian bill. "The unfortunate
continuing injustice here is that the handful of surviving victims of
the illegal deportation of the 1930s still do not have an opportunity
for their day in court."

Poochigian said the bills never should have been linked because
"they are completely different issues." The Armenian bill, he said,
deals with breaches of contract by private entities, rather than
claims against the state of California.

The Armenian genocide refers to the period between 1915 and 1923,
when Armenians were driven from their homeland in the Ottoman Empire
by means of torture, starvation and murder. The Armenian community
says that 1.5 million people died.

The effort to recover bank deposits comes on the heels of a successful
drive to secure millions of dollars in unpaid insurance claims owed to
genocide victims. New York Life Insurance Co. and heirs of about 2,400
policy holders agreed on a $20 million settlement in 2004, followed
by a $17 million settlement between French life insurance company AXA
and about 5,000 people and charities, according to published reports.

The deals were made possible as a result of Poochigian-authored
legislation that extended the statute of limitations for insurance
claims until 2010. The current bill allows genocide victims or heirs
living in the state to go beyond insurance policies and seek bank
deposit claims until 2016.

"It rights a terrible wrong dating back to the beginning of the last
century," Speier said.

There are no firm estimates on how much money and assets could be
recovered, but "all indications are it’s enormous," said lead attorney
Mark Geragos in a phone interview last week.

Geragos — an Armenian-American whose family name is Geragosian —
has emotional ties to the case. His grandparents fled the genocide and
settled in Fresno, where they ran a grocery store on Belmont Street,
he said.

The famed Los Angeles attorney has handled a number of high-profile
cases and his client list has included the likes of Michael Jackson,
Scott Petersen and, most recently, the trainer for Barry Bonds.

But the Armenian case, Geragos said, has the "greatest personal
significance of any of the cases I’ve ever been associated with."

The reporter can be reached at eschultz@fresnobee.com or (916)
326-5541.