Briefly

Newspaper publisher sentenced in scam

A 43-year-old publisher of Russian-language newspapers and magazines was sentenced Monday to eight years in federal prison for running a complicated “cash-back” scheme that helped several perpetrators of health-care fraud avoid paying taxes, prosecutors said.

Andranik Petrosian, of Burbank, was sentenced to 96 months in prison by U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson and ordered to pay $521,845 in restitution to the IRS.

Petrosian used his publications as fronts to launder more than $10 million for fraudulent medical companies, according to a joint probe by IRS-Criminal Investigation, the FBI and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Medical companies made out checks to Petrosian’s companies — including the newspaper Contact Weekly and magazines Kakadu and Tet-a-Tet — for advertising or graphic design services that were never provided, prosecutors alleged.