A Glendale man has agreed to plead guilty to federal charges for committing hate crimes against five people at a family-owned Turkish restaurant in Beverly Hills last year, prosecutors announced Thursday.
William Stepanyan, 23, will plead guilty to one count of conspiracy and one hate crime charge, according to a plea agreement filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California. He is expected to formally enter those pleas in the coming weeks.
Stepanyan, who is Armenian-American, sent a text message to a friend on Nov. 4, 2020, stating that he planned to go “hunting for [T]urks.” Stepanyan was reportedly angered by a conflict that had recently broken out between Armenia and a neighboring country, Azerbaijan, a few months prior. The war, which lasted from September to November 2020, was over a piece of disputed territory.
Due to Turkey’s support for Azerbaijan in the 2020 conflict, tensions between Armenian and Turkish communities worldwide hit a boiling point. Numerous protests and counterprotests involving Americans of Armenian, Turkish and Azerbaijani descent took place in and around Los Angeles County.
After sending the text, Stepanyan reportedly met with his co-defendant, Harutyun Harry Chalikyan, 24, of Tujunga, and other Armenian-American individuals to protest what they considered to be Turkish and Azerbaijani aggression toward Armenians.
The group drove to the family-owned Cafe Istanbul on South Beverly Drive in Beverly Hills where prosecutors alleged Stepanyan and Chalikyan stormed the premises and accosted individuals inside.
Both young men were wearing masks during the attack, flung chairs at victims and shouted derogatory slurs about Turkish people. Four of the five people attacked were of Turkish descent.
At least one of the defendants threatened the diners, shouting, “We came to kill you!”
Multiple people were injured during the attack, including one individual who reported losing feeling in their legs and collapsed multiple times due to the injury.
Stepanyan also allegedly tore out the restaurant’s computer terminals and stole a victim’s iPhone.
Long-standing tensions between the communities are also rooted in the genocide of ethnic Armenians residing in what is now modern-day Turkey during the First World War I; an atrocity the Turkish and Azerbaijani governments refuse to recognize.
Cafe Istanbul incurred roughly $20,000 in damage and was forced to temporarily close. It reported losing thousands of dollars in revenue.
After Stepanyan pleads guilty to the two felony charges, he may face up to 15 years in federal prison.
Chalikyan will go on trial for his alleged involvement on Oct. 26. He has pleaded not guilty to one count of conspiracy and five hate crime charges.
