A former Los Angeles Police Department officer was sentenced Tuesday to life plus 15 years in state prison for a home invasion in which $350,000 in Bitcoin was taken from a teenager, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Eric Halem, 38, was convicted in March of kidnapping and robbery after a two-week trial. Jurors returned their verdict in less than a day. Superior Court Judge Mildred Escobedo rejected a late request for a new trial before handing down concurrent life terms, saying the evidence showed a man ready to use violence out of “sheer and utter greed.” According to the district attorney’s office, Halem will be eligible for parole after seven years.
Prosecutors said the group posed as police
Prosecutors said Halem and three other men entered a Koreatown apartment at about 2:30 a.m. on Dec. 28, 2024. They handcuffed two victims, moved funds out of their cryptocurrency account, and took cash and jewelry.
The men arrived in a Range Rover and a Lamborghini Urus registered to Halem’s car-rental business, prosecutors said. They wore vests identifying them as police and used an access code supplied by a conspirator who had rented the unit.
Halem had left the department nearly two years earlier after 13 years of service, though he was still serving as a reserve officer at the time of the robbery.
Judge said the victim’s background did not excuse the crime
The 17-year-old victim testified using only his first name. According to the report, he had built part of his crypto holdings by scamming others. Escobedo said that did not excuse what happened in the case, adding that a former officer pretending to be police in order to rob someone was “heinous and egregious.”
Halem’s family has challenged the outcome. His mother, Randi, told the Los Angeles Times that she did not believe the truth came out at trial and called the case “a miscarriage of the law.”
Three co-defendants have not yet gone to trial
Luis Banuelos, Pierre Louis, and Mishael Mann were each charged in August 2025 with kidnapping for ransom, first-degree residential robbery, and home-invasion robbery in concert. All three pleaded not guilty, have not yet stood trial, and maintain their innocence.
Halem also faces additional charges tied to insurance fraud and a second crypto robbery that prosecutors said took place days before the Koreatown raid. Those accusations remain allegations.
Wrench attacks and fake-police tactics keep surfacing in crypto crime
The report said so-called wrench attacks, in which criminals use violence to force crypto holders to hand over assets, are rising worldwide. CertiK verified 52 wrench attacks globally in the first half of 2026, with recorded losses of $124.1 million.
It also cited the case of Remy St. Felix, who was sentenced to 47 years in September 2024 for running a violent crypto home-invasion ring. At the time, that was the longest prison term handed down in a U.S. crypto case.
Impersonating police has also become a recurring tactic. In March, three men posing as officers held a French couple at knifepoint and forced a $1 million Bitcoin transfer. In June, a 32-year-old was indicted in Nancy over a similar attack on a couple whose crypto holdings had been exposed in a data breach. In Ukraine, prosecutors in May accused four police officers and a civilian of kidnapping crypto entrepreneurs at gunpoint and extorting $2.2 million through fabricated debt claims.