AUTHORITIES PROBING EXTORTIONS OF LOCAL ARMENIAN BUSINESSES.

Byline: Jaxon Van Derbeken and Anne Burke Daily News Staff Writers

An extortion attempt that ended with the deaths of a gunman and an innocent bystander is under federal investigation as part of a wider pattern of shakedowns targeting local Armenian businesses, officials said Thursday.

``We believe that it may be part of a pattern of extortion activities in the Glendale, Burbank and North Hollywood area,'' said Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen G. Larson. ``It is a serious problem.''

A 19-year-old amateur boxer from Glendale and one of the suspects was killed late Tuesday when a gunfight broke out between the owner of the Mirage Clothing and Shoe Store on Glendale Avenue and six would-be extortionists, police said.

The exchange took place after the owner refused to pay extortion money, said Glendale police Sgt. Rick Young. Police arrested five suspects and each has been charged with two counts of murder.

Larson, who headed prosecution of the reputed leader of the Armenian Mafia in the Los Angeles area, said extortionists have been targeting both small and large businesses in the Armenian community.

``There's been a number of these types of incidents involving what they call protection rackets, and extortion collections of credit,'' Larson said. ``The FBI is involved and is working with state and local agencies in the ongoing efforts to address this problems.''

Young said Glendale police are working with the FBI to fight the wave of extortion crimes.

``We know the FBI is concerned with the big picture of the growing criminal element that is going on,'' he said, adding that three other extortion cases have been cracked in Glendale in the past two years.

Young said that one incident occurred Nov. 20, 1995, when suspects entered a Glendale Avenue office, made accusations against a doctor and later attempted to blackmail him. The doctor reported the incident and two men have been convicted in that case.

In another case, on Aug. 22, 1994, a woman business owner was approached by a group of three or four Armenian men who ordered her to shut down her business. One suspect sexually assaulted her. ``We arrested a business owner a couple of blocks away, who was upset that she had opened the same sort of business - he hired this group of thugs to get her to shut her business down.''

Police declined to release information on a third incident earlier this year.

Young said that all the attacks involve a demand of money with implied or threats of force.

``We don't know how many other arsons, assaults or how many robberies are tied to this,'' he said of the extortion rings. ``We feel a lot of those cases are tied to this type of crime - it's hard for us to prove it, unless the victim is willing to cooperate.''

Young said the experts suspect the ongoing extortion efforts are not the work of a single large organization but a wave of smaller, competing rings.

``We call this unorganized, organized crime,'' he said. ``Right now it's a lot of little splinter groups flaring up, trying to gain hold.''

The most recent federal organized crime crackdown led to the prosecution of the reputed leader of the local Armenian Mafia, Hovsep ``Mike'' Mikaelian of North Hollywood. He was arrested Sept. 12, 1995, and is awaiting sentencing in January for heroin and cocaine trafficking, mail and wire fraud, Larson said.

``There are associates of what we call the Mikaelian organized crime family still out there, who have not been arrested,'' Larson said.

Members of the Armenian community said they were unaware of the federal investigation and had difficultly believing Armenians are being victimized by members of their own culture.

``The community is so close knit, that if anything like that happened, it would get out, it wouldn't be a secret,'' said Rafi Manoukian, chairman of the Glendale chapter of the Armenian National Committee, a political advocacy group.

If the charges are borne out, ArImenian leaders said they hope to work with law enforcement agencies in educating Armenian business people about ways to protect themselves.

``If the Armenian community is being preyed on by criminals, certainly we would like to inform them that this doesn't have to be the case. Certainly, there are ways of addressing this problem,'' said Vicken Papazian, executive director of the committee's regional office in Glendale.

Manoukian said he would like to help mount an educational campaign, using Armenian newspapers and television shows to teach business people about ways to combat extortion.

Los Angeles County is home to about 250,000 Armenians, many of whom came to this country during an immigration boom in the late 1980s and early '90s, Papazian said.

Like new arrivals from all regions of the world, Armenians are sometimes reluctant to take their problems to the police, because they're not familiar with the system and can't speak English well, leaders said.

``The police would be the appropriate place to bring this kind of complaint, rather than try to resolve it personally,'' Papazian said.