TAMPA, Fla. - Edmon Vardanyan, known in the gay adult industry as GAYVN Award-winning performer Nickolay Petrov, on Friday traded 20 years of his life for $5,000 when he was sentenced to prison for his role in a bizarre family dispute that nearly turned deadly.
A native of Armenia, Vardanyan, 24, received the stiffest sentence among four co-conspirators who pleaded guilty to charges including "travel with the intent to kill, injure or harass" another person and "aiding and abetting another person to travel with the intent to kill, injure or harass" another person. Court records indicate Vardanyan and two other men were paid varying sums of money to employ physical force in convincing the fourth defendant's parents-in-law to continue supporting him financially.
In return for $5,000, Vardanyan assaulted Grigori and Galina Komissarchuk twice at their home in Brooklyn, N.Y., and once in Sarasota, Fla. The Komissarchuks, both in their 60s, sustained skull fractures and other injuries at the hands of a hammer-wielding assailant they identified as Vardanyan.
The first attack occurred Sept. 24, 2006; the most recent was April 30, 2007. Vardanyan was arrested in early January 2008.
Vardanyan told the court he was on probation for credit card fraud when a friend approached him and offered to pay if he would scare a third man's in-laws. The in-laws had ceased their support of Alex Shevgert and his wife after sinking tens of thousands of dollars into several failed businesses Shevgert owned.
Chief U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Kovachevich said Vardanyan's actions indicated a "depraved mind," despite his expression of remorse.
"I was trying to prove something, I guess," he told the court.
"You could have walked away and said ‘no,' and then you [attacked the Komissarchuks] a third time," Kovachevich told Vardanyan during his sentencing. "Could have been your own mother."
Vardanyan will be deported after serving his sentence and submitting to three years of supervised release.
Shevgert was convicted of conspiracy in November. He is scheduled to be sentenced in March.
Larik Cholak, who admitted he recruited Vardanyan, testified against Shevgert and was sentenced to three and one-half years in prison followed by three years of supervised release.
Kovachevich sentenced getaway driver Sergey Zub to two and one-half years in prison.
Vardanyan, as Petrov, shared the 2008 GAYVN Award for Best Threesome with Jesse Santana and Jason White for a scene in Jet Set Men's Just Add Water. He also appeared in Latinolicious and Code Violators for Jet Set Men, Big Dick Club 2 for Falcon Studios and Communion for Hot House Entertainment.
