A former Los Angeles police officer got life plus 15 years in state prison Tuesday for an armed home-invasion robbery that stripped $350,000 in bitcoin from a 17-year-old at a Koreatown high-rise.
Eric Halem, 38, was convicted in March of kidnapping and robbery. The verdict came after a two-week trial in Los Angeles County Superior Court and took jurors less than a day. Judge Mildred Escobedo handed down concurrent life terms and turned aside a last-ditch defense motion for a new trial. The evidence, she said, showed a man prepared to use violence out of “sheer and utter greed” and added, “there could’ve been no other conclusion.”
Defense attorneys had argued Halem’s initial lawyers failed to call witnesses or examine key evidence. Escobedo denied the motion.
The robbery went down around 2:30 a.m. on December 28, 2024. Halem and three co-conspirators entered a Koreatown apartment wearing vests that identified them as police, prosecutors said. They used an access code supplied by a conspirator who had rented the unit, The Block reported. Two victims were handcuffed. The teenager was forced to hand over a hard drive under threat of death. Cash and jewellery were also taken. The crew arrived in a Range Rover and a Lamborghini Urus, both registered to Halem’s car rental business. Decrypt reported five people including Halem wore police-style tactical vests; The Block identified three co-conspirators alongside Halem. The exact crew size was not reconciled in either report.
Halem had left the LAPD nearly two years before the raid. He served 13 years but was still a reserve officer at the time. The victim, who testified under the first name Daniel, had built his crypto holdings partly by scamming others, according to Decrypt. Escobedo said that did not excuse the crime. She called a former officer masquerading as police to rob someone “heinous and egregious.”
Halem becomes eligible for parole after seven years, a district attorney’s office spokesperson said. He must complete most of his 15-year sentence before serving the concurrent life terms.
Three co-defendants, Luis Banuelos, Pierre Louis and Mishael Mann, were charged in August 2025 with kidnapping for ransom, first-degree residential robbery, and home invasion robbery in concert. All pleaded not guilty. None has stood trial.
Halem also faces pending charges over insurance fraud and a second crypto robbery said to have taken place days before the Koreatown raid. Those remain allegations. Whether the second robbery involved the same crew or methods was not stated.
Halem’s mother, Randi Halem, told the Los Angeles Times she believed the truth had not emerged at trial and called the outcome “a miscarriage of the law.”
The sentencing was first reported by the Los Angeles Times on August 4. The case lands amid a rise in so-called wrench attacks, physical, often violent robberies targeting crypto holders. CertiK, a blockchain security firm, verified 52 such attacks worldwide in the first half of 2026 and recorded losses of $124.1 million. Remy St. Felix was sentenced to 47 years in September 2024 for running a violent crypto home-invasion ring. At the time, it was the longest term in a U.S. crypto case.
The pattern has surfaced beyond the United States. Three men posing as officers held a French couple at knifepoint in March, forcing a $1 million bitcoin transfer. A 32-year-old was indicted in Nancy, France, in June over a similar attack on a couple whose holdings had been exposed in a data breach. In May, Ukraine prosecutors accused four police officers and a civilian of kidnapping crypto entrepreneurs at gunpoint and extorting $2.2 million through fabricated debt claims.
Traders, as ever, disagree on whether hardware wallets or multi-sig setups meaningfully reduce physical risk.
Whether Halem will appeal was not stated. Trial dates for the three co-defendants have not been set, and the exact amount ultimately recovered was not reported.
