Ex-LA Sheriff’s deputy gets 18 months for lying in crypto ‘Godfather’ probe

A federal judge has sentenced former Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputy Scott Allen Simpkins to 18 months in prison on Monday for lying to FBI agents about a $25,000 extortion he witnessed inside the Bel Air mansion of jailed crypto figure Adam Iza. 

The sentence is the latest in a corruption case that has already sent several deputies to prison for moonlighting as enforcers for a man who branded himself “The Godfather.”

Simpkins, 34, of Brea, was also fined $10,000 by U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California. He pleaded guilty to a single count of obstruction of justice on March 17 and stepped down from the department’s Special Enforcement Bureau after admitting to the felony.

What did Simpkins cover up?

The lie concerned a night in August 2021 where Iza had paid Simpkins, fellow deputy Christopher Michael Cadman, and other officers to guard a party at his mansion, and the two deputies each pocketed $1,400 for that weekend’s work, prosecutors said. 

A party planner referred to in court papers only as “R.C.” was thrown out of the event before dawn for behaving erratically.

The next day, according to the plea agreement, Simpkins and Cadman walked R.C. into Iza’s office and shut the door. Iza laid four or five live 9mm rounds on his desk and, while he spoke, rolled a bullet between his fingers. He then took R.C.’s phone and pressed him to move $25,000 into an account Iza controlled. Once the money left R.C.’s bank, the deputies walked him back out.

When the FBI questioned Simpkins about the events three years later, he told them that he did not see any ammunition, no shell casings, and no money changed hands. 

That interview occurred in November 2024, and the agents reportedly warned Simpkins that lying itself was a crime. He later admitted he knew the false statements were meant to blunt the investigation into Iza.

A department caught in Iza’s orbit

Iza, 25, has been in federal custody since September 2024. He described himself as a cryptocurrency businessman and ran a trading firm called Zort out of Bel Air, where he spent around $100,000 a month on private muscle, court filings show. 

Much of that money went to a security company run by then-deputy Eric Chase Saavedra, who staffed it with active law enforcement officers. Prosecutors say that Simpkins and Cadman later collected about 10% of the firm’s first-month profits as a reward for helping land Iza’s long-term contract.

Simpkins’s sentence is the latest in the case. Former deputy Michael David Coberg is serving 63 months and was ordered to repay $127,000 for helping Iza extort a rival and stage a fake drug arrest. Saavedra and Cadman have both pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing.

Iza’s own legal troubles run in two directions. In January 2025 he admitted to wire fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy against rights in Los Angeles, where prosecutors have described a roughly $37 million fraud built on hijacked Meta advertising accounts. 

On June 1, 2026, he pleaded guilty in Connecticut to a Hobbs Act robbery conspiracy tied to the violent August 2024 abduction of a couple near Danbury, part of a plot to seize stolen Bitcoin. Iza awaits sentencing in both districts.