Biden commuted the death sentences of 2 California killers. Here's what we know about them

Summer Lin, Los Angeles Times on Dec 24, 2024

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LOS ANGELES — Two San Fernando Valley men, who were sentenced to death over a decade ago for killing five people, had their sentences commuted to life in prison on Monday by President Joe Biden.

In 2007, Iouri Mikhel and Jurijus Kadamovas were sentenced to death after they were convicted of murdering five people in a kidnapping-for-ransom scheme. Prosecutors said the pair dumped the bodies in a remote Northern California reservoir.

Mikhel and Kadamovas were among 37 criminals whose death sentences Biden commuted to life without parole. Biden didn't commute the sentences of three other men on federal death row convicted of mass murder and terrorism: Robert Bowers, convicted of the 2018 mass shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh; Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, convicted of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing; and Dylann Roof, convicted of the 2015 mass shooting at a Black church in Charleston, S.C.

"Make no mistake: I condemn these murderers, grieve for the victims of their despicable acts, and ache for all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss," Biden said in a statement. "I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level."

Mikhel and Kadamovas, Soviet-born immigrants, hatched the kidnapping plot while working at an aquarium store on Ventura Boulevard. They kidnapped five people over a four-month period starting in 2001.

They lured their victims with offers of business deals and demanded more than $5.5 million from the victims' family members. They received more than $1 million in ransom but killed their victims by strangulation anyway.

The pair drove to the New Melones reservoir near Yosemite to dump the bodies.

Their victims were Nick Kharabadze, 29, of Woodland Hills; Alexander Umansky, 35, of Sherman Oaks; Rita Pekler, 39, of West Hollywood; George Safiev, 37, of Beverly Hills; and Meyer Muscatel, 58, of Sherman Oaks.

Once behind bars, Mikhel hatched several escape plans, including a scheme to use bolt cutters, a pepper shaker, a rake and fence cutters to break out of a detention center in San Bernardino and make a getaway with Kadamovas on motorcycles. But a letter that detailed the plot was found in a trash can by a guard and the plan was foiled.

President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to expand the death penalty to "drug dealers and human traffickers." During Trump's first term, 13 inmates were put to death on federal death row, restarting federal executions after about 20 years.

During the end of his first term in office, Trump commuted the sentences of 70 people and pardoned 73 others, including former campaign and White House advisor Stephen K. Bannon, who was charged with federal fraud and money laundering in a scheme to defraud supporters of building a border wall with Mexico.