Cherokee bail bondsman pleads guilty in sexual extortion case
A bail bondsman who the FBI accused of accepting sexual favors in lieu of monetary repayments pleaded guilty to one count of forced labor, a felony that carries a maximum sentence of 20 years and a $250,000 fine.
Phillip Armachain, of Cherokee, was arrested following a May 2017 complaint alleging that three women had come forward to say that they had paid their bond fees or loan repayments by having sex with Armachain, who was known to charge 100 percent interest rates on loans. A fourth victim, the complaint said, was a girl between the ages of 12 and 16 whose mother borrowed money from Armachain. According to the complaint, Armachain would give her the money only if she sent her daughter in alone to get it. During those visits, according to an investigator’s testimony in a court transcript, Armachain would digitally penetrate the girl and touch her breasts under the shirt.
The girl’s mother was later charged in the case as well, with a second superseding bill of indictment issued in December 2017 charging Armachain and the mother with three counts of sexual abuse of a child 12 to 16 years old, a crime that includes either committing the sexual acts or aiding and abetting another in commission of those acts. In addition, Armachain faced two charges of forced labor for “obtaining the labor and services of (the victims) by means of the abuse and threatened abuse of law and legal process.”
However, the cases were later separated, with the mother in January pleading guilty to misprision of felony, a crime that occurs when a person has knowledge of a felony being committed but does not alert authorities as soon as possible. The crime comes with a maximum prison sentence of three years.
In her confession, the mother said that she had borrowed money from Armachain multiple times before August 2016, when the abuse began, and that he’d lend her the money if she agreed to pay him back twice the amount of the loan. However, in or about August 2016, Armachain insisted that the mother bring her daughter to get the cash from him, repeating this request on at least three occasions in August and September.
The mother believed that Armachain was attempting to engage in some kind of sexual activity with her daughter, her admission reads, and the daughter told her mother that Armachain said he wanted to have sex with her and would feel her breasts and buttocks when she went in to get the money from him. However, the mother never notified the authorities, and the abuse came to law enforcement’s attention only when the mother’s three children went to live with their father in Yancey County. The daughter told her father what had happened, and he reported the abuse.
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Before this report, the mother’s admission reads, the FBI had interviewed the mother in its investigation of Armachain, and in those interviews the mother concealed her knowledge of the crimes, saying that her daughter had never told her about any abusive sexual contact.
Armachain’s admission does not mention his abuse of the minor, but rather concerns his conduct after bailing a woman out of the Cherokee Tribal Detention Facility in November 2016. After bailing her out, the admission reads, Armachain offered to give her a ride home but instead drove her to his own house in Cherokee. Once inside, he started kissing the woman and removing her clothes, telling her that if she had sex with him he would forgive the fee she owed for having executed the bond. The woman feared that if she didn’t do as he asked he would surrender her back to custody, the admission says, and so she “felt pressured to engaged in actions that she otherwise would not have done.”
The investigation, conducted by the FBI and the Cherokee Indian Police Department, stemmed from information that Armachain, a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, had been receiving per capita checks — semiannual payments tribal members receive from casino profits — in the mail as collateral for loans he’d issued to tribal members doing business with him. During 2015, more than 150 enrolled members listed Armachain’s address as the delivery address for their per capita check, according to the affidavit from FBI Special Agent Andrew Romagnuolo, on which the criminal complaint is based.
The mother of the minor who was abused is not named in this report to protect the privacy of the minor.
