2 arrested after brazen wedding crasher seen on camera stealing $60K from Glendale couple
GLENDALE, Calif. (KABC) -- Two men have been arrested in connection to the theft of a wedding gift box in Glendale. The thieves ruined what should have been one of the Orange County couple's best nights ever.
One of the suspects is accused of stealing roughly $60,000 from the couple, and the other was the alleged getaway driver.
Less than a week after an Orange County couple became victims at their own wedding, police recovered thousands of dollars that were stolen from them, but that's not all they found.
A now-viral video shows the thief making off with the bride and groom's gift box last weekend.
While his black suit and dress shoes allowed him to fit in at Nadeen and George Farahat's 300-guest wedding in Glendale, he couldn't hide from the security cameras inside, which captured clear pictures of his uncovered face before, during and after the wedding crash-and-grab.
"A lot of tips came in from that. Some were good, some were bad. That's helped us identify the suspects pretty early on in the investigation," said Sgt. Jose Barajas with the Glendale Police Department.
Just five days after the couple said "I do," Glendale police arrested Armean Shirehjini. They say he's the man who stepped on the dance floor and waltzed out of the Renaissance Banquet Hall with tens of thousands of dollars worth of cash and checks from the wedding.
Police identified the getaway driver as Andranik Avetisyan.
Eyewitness News spoke with the newlyweds earlier this week.
"I ended up sitting on the dance floor, sobbing with my friends and cousins around me," the bride, Nadeen, said.
Glendale police say they recovered a pile of checks and a good amount of cash inside a safe at the suspect's home.
"Obviously, this person did hit the jackpot. We believe they got about $60,000 and a few checks. We did recover 26 checks in total and about $10,000," Barajas said.
There was another surprising find when police executed search warrants on both Shirehjni's and Avetisyan's homes: a large amount of drugs and a ton of guns.
"Detectives executed search warrants at both suspects' residences and recovered a large amount of cash and dozens of checks made out to the victims from the wedding," according to the police statement. "In addition, several firearms and various narcotics were seized from both residences."
Despite what might look like the guns, drugs and cash haul you'd see from an organized criminal enterprise, police say neither suspect had a criminal history of doing this, and the theft was likely a crime of opportunity.
"Glendale has a lot of banquet halls, a lot of weddings every single weekend, so we believe that maybe this was just a random location that they decided to pick," Barajas said.
No weapons were used at the wedding, but police say Shirehjini was armed when he was arrested on Friday night.
The happily married couple, who Eyewitness News spoke with before the arrests were made and all the guns were found, are vowing to focus on all the fun before the theft.
"We had a wonderful ceremony at our church. We had a really fun party with our family and friends, and we were able to celebrate up until the incident," the groom, George, said. "We're trying to focus on the fun times, the important things to us, and the fact that we're married."
Eyewitness News asked police if any or all of the guns were purchased legally, and they said they are looking into it. They're also looking into the drugs and what appear to be fake IDs that were recovered.
