A Los Angeles court sentenced former LAPD officer Eric Halem to life in prison plus 15 years on Tuesday for a crypto robbery in which he kidnapped a teenager and stole a hard drive holding $350,000 in bitcoin.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Mildred Escobedo handed down the concurrent life terms after rejecting a defense request for a new trial, according to the Los Angeles Times, which first reported the sentencing. The ruling closes the core case against an officer who still held LAPD reserve status when he and three others robbed a 17-year-old during a December 2024 home invasion in Koreatown.
Judge Rejects New-Trial Bid
Halem asked for a new trial, arguing that his original attorneys failed to call witnesses or examine key evidence. Escobedo denied the motion and told the court the trial evidence showed Halem acted out of “sheer and utter greed,” adding that “there could’ve been no other conclusion.”
Under the sentence, Halem must serve most of the 15-year term before the concurrent life terms begin, and he becomes eligible for parole after seven years, according to a district attorney’s spokesperson. A jury convicted Halem in March after a two-week trial, returning the verdict in under a day.
Prosecutors said he and three co-conspirators entered a high-rise apartment and forced the victim, identified in court only as Daniel, to hand over the hard drive under threat of death. The case tracks a wider run of violent thefts aimed at crypto holders, including a $6.5 million spree in which federal prosecutors charged three men who posed as delivery workers and restrained victims across San Francisco, San Jose, and Los Angeles with firearms, duct tape, and zip ties before draining their wallets.
Halem Faces Further Charges
Halem left the LAPD nearly two years before the robbery but still carried reserve officer status when it happened, according to the Los Angeles Times. He still faces charges in separate cases involving insurance fraud and a second alleged crypto-related robbery, and his co-defendants have not yet stood trial.
Comparable prosecutions have advanced elsewhere, with two Texas brothers who pleaded guilty to robbing a Minnesota family of more than $8 million in crypto at gunpoint, one of a series of so-called wrench attacks where criminals use force rather than hacking to seize digital assets.
Enforcement has reached financial crypto crime beyond physical robberies, and a federal court sentenced a former crypto CEO to 20 years earlier this year over a $200 million bitcoin fraud and Ponzi scheme that promised guaranteed returns through fake investment products, with the judge citing “significant and lasting financial harm” to victims who trusted the false promises.
The prosecutions land as reported losses climb, with FBI data that showed Americans lost a record $11.36 billion to crypto-related fraud in 2025, a 22% increase from the prior year and the highest annual total the agency has logged. More than 181,000 of the complaints filed that year involved digital assets, with investment schemes accounting for the largest share of the losses.