A group of women have written to Madeline Tashjian, wife of Serop Der-Boghossian now being tried for pedophilia, complaining that their husbands, employees of the Akhtala Mining Company, haven't received their monetary bonuses as promised.

In the letter, a copy of which was forwarded to Hetq, the women write, "You would think that the employees of the company are to blame for the horrendous crimes of her husband, and now enraged, she is taking out her revenge on our husbands."

The wives note that in April 2010, Serop Der-Boghossian cut the wages of a group of workers by 10%, promising that the company would pay this amount in the form of bonuses if they fulfilled the mine's production targets.

They say that these targets were twice achieved by March 2011 and that Mr. Der-Boghossian paid the workers as promised.

"However, due to reasons unknown to us, Madeline has refused to pay our husbands these amounts even though the ore production targets were reached in April, May and June of this year," the letter reads.

The wives also claim that Mrs.Tashjian has nullified the bonus agreement signed by her husband and will not increase wages by the 10% in question.

They say that the monthly bonuses only amounted to 10,000 – 15,000 AMD; a small expense for the company but a sizeable chunk of income for their families.

The angry spouses also say that they believe that the money is being used to pay off the boys implicated in the paedophilia case regarding their testimony in court.

On August 19, Hetq telephoned Metal Prince Ltd., the mining company owned by Serop Der-Boghossian, to get their side of the story.

We were told to submit our questions in writing, which we did that same day.

Receiving no response, we telephoned again today.

Liza, the same woman, picked up the phone and told us that this was an internal issue and that we might not receive any formal response.

After pressing her a bit more, Liza said that the company's public affairs spokesperson was away on vacation. He would be the one to state whether or not Metal Prince would respond to our list of questions.

Five minutes later, Liza called up Hetq to say that the spokesperson would be returning on September 5.