Sacramento man who impersonated FBI agent at hotel receives eight-month sentence
Sacramento CA June 16 2020
Four months after he told a clerk at a Sacramento-area Red Roof Inn that he was an FBI agent and needed to see the guest registry, Daniel Arushanov was sentenced Monday to eight months for impersonating an officer of the United States.
Arushanov, 27, pleaded guilty to the charge in a plea agreement filed in federal court in Sacramento and was sentenced Monday by Chief U.S. District Judge Kimberly J. Mueller.
He also was ordered not to return to the North Highlands hotel once he is released from custody.
“I don’t see myself going back there ever again,” Arushanov told the judge in a hearing conducted over video because of coronavirus concerns.
Arushanov could have been sentenced to as much as three years in prison and a $250,000 fine for the bizarre incident, which began Feb. 11 at the Red Roof Inn & Suites on Watt Avenue, where he walked in to the lobby at 3:43 a.m., told a clerk he was an FBI agent working on an underage prostitution sting and asked to see the guest roster.
Court documents say the hotel employee handed over the guest list and Arushanov circled three names on it.
The hotel worker asked to see his FBI credentials, as did a hotel security guard, and Arushanov produced an iPad opened to the FBI’s Sacramento website and gave the workers the FBI’s phone number. When they called and asked if agents were working an operation at the hotel, they were told no, court papers say.
Sheriff’s deputies later tracked Arushanov down through the license plate of a Lexus he was seen leaving in and arrested him. Two days after his release, court papers say, he returned to the hotel and threatened a worker there.
“You were the guy who identified me the other day with the cops and are the reason I went to jail,” Arushanov allegedly told the clerk, according to an FBI affidavit filed in court documents Monday. “I am going to come back and f—— shoot you and the f—— desk clerk for putting me in jail. I also know where you live.”
Arushanov originally faced a charge of witness retaliation that could have netted him up to 20 years but that charge was dropped under the plea agreement, and his federal defender, Megan Hopkins, argued that Arushanov suffers from bipolar disorder and that his actions at the hotel were the result of “delusional thinking.”
She also noted that Arushanov’s wife is pregnant and argued that he should be sentenced to time served rather than be transferred to a federal prison where he may be exposed to COVID-19.
Arushanov conceded that he suffers from a mental illness and found out his wife, who is now five months’ pregnant, was carrying their child after he was detained at the Sacramento County Main Jail.
“I’m not the same person I was four months ago,” he told the judge. “Stuff changes.”
Mueller said she believed that because Arushanov already has served four months he may be able to remain in custody at the Main Jail rather than be shipped to a federal prison, and that he should win release before his wife gives birth.
“It still means Mr. Arushanov should be released in time to greet the birth of this child,” the judge said.
