Mikhel was born in 1965 in Russia and was living in the Los Angeles area, where he worked with Jurijus Kadamovas.
Between October 2001 and January 2002 the two men, with accomplices, abducted five people connected to the Russian-speaking business community in southern California, held them, extracted ransoms of around a million dollars in total, and killed all five. The bodies were weighted and dropped into the New Melones reservoir.
The five who died were Meyer Muscatel, fifty-four; Rita Peckler, thirty-nine; Alexander Umansky, thirty-five; George Safiev, thirty-seven; and Nick Kharabadze, twenty-nine.
They were arrested in 2002, convicted in federal court, and both sentenced to death on March 12, 2007. He is held on federal death row at Terre Haute.
In several cases the family paid and the person was killed regardless, which is what the prosecution built the aggravation on.
This entry describes the same five deaths as the entry for Jurijus Kadamovas. They were tried together and convicted of the same conduct, and the count should be recorded once, not twice.
The federal government has carried out no execution since January 2021.