News > NASA employee used COVID funds to grow pot and pay off his debt

NASA employee used COVID funds to grow pot and pay off his debt

A NASA employee was caught using COVID-19 relief loans to support an illegal marijuana-growing endeavor and erase his real estate debt, federal prosecutors said. Armen Hovanesian, 32, who works for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, run by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, had applied for COVID-19 relief loans to help his small businesses during the pandemic in 2020, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California.