Former Los Angeles cop hit with life sentence for $350K Koreatown crypto robbery

A former Los Angeles police officer has been sentenced to life plus 15 years in state prison for posing as a cop and robbing a teenager of a hard drive holding roughly $350,000 in Bitcoin.

Despite the recent run of violent crypto activities, the sentence is one of the stiffest punishments that have been handed down so far.

Who bagged a life sentence for a crypto crime?

Eric Halem, 38, has been sentenced to concurrent life terms for kidnapping and robbery by the Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Mildred Escobedo.

Halem was convicted by a jury in March after a two-week trial regarding a December 2024 robbery. Prosecutors said Halem and three other men presented themselves as officers serving a search warrant to talk their way into a Koreatown high-rise rented by a 17-year-old.

Once inside, the group threatened to kill the teenager unless he surrendered a hard drive storing about $350,000 in Bitcoin. The victim, sworn in under only his first name, Daniel, handed it over. The Times reported that during the investigation, it was discovered that Daniel had built his crypto holdings partly by scamming other people.

Escobedo said she changed her mind several times before settling on the punishment. She acknowledged letters from Halem’s family and friends portraying him as a caring father, but said the trial evidence pointed to a man ready to use violence out of “sheer and utter greed.”

Halem’s lawyer, Joseph Weimortz, had asked for a new trial, arguing his client’s original attorneys never called witnesses or examined key evidence and even skipped an opening statement, but Escobedo rejected that motion, stating that the earlier lawyers had performed well, but there was “extremely overwhelming evidence against Mr. Halem.”

Under the sentence, Halem becomes eligible for parole after seven years.

Was Halem’s motive really greed?

Halem had reportedly already been gone from the LAPD for nearly two years when the robbery took place, but the 13-year department veteran was still serving as a reserve officer. His former associates told the paper he ran several businesses on the side, including a luxury car rental operation and an app for remote actor auditions, and had toyed with building a reality show around his life.

His mother, Randi Halem, called the verdict “a miscarriage of the law,” and his sister, Alison, said the presence of LAPD Robbery-Homicide detectives in the gallery felt like intimidation.

Halem still faces separate cases tied to alleged insurance fraud and another crypto-related robbery. He also has three co-defendants who have yet to stand trial.

The case is one among several cases of people being targeted for their digital assets rather than cash or jewelry. Federal prosecutors in Connecticut recently charged three Missouri men over a planned home invasion meant to force a bitcoin transfer.

Three Tennessee men were also recently charged over an alleged California robbery ring that, in one incident, moved about $6.5 million in digital assets out of a victim’s accounts. Those defendants have pleaded not guilty.