Overview
- Judge Mildred Escobedo denied Eric Halem’s bid for a new trial and on Tuesday sentenced him to concurrent life terms for kidnapping and robbery plus an additional 15-year term, with a DA spokesperson saying he will be eligible for parole after seven years.
- Prosecutors say that in December 2024 Halem and three other men posed as police to enter a Koreatown high-rise, threatened a 17-year-old known at trial as Daniel, and forced him to surrender a hard drive holding about $350,000 in bitcoin.
- Trial evidence showed the attackers wore vests identifying them as police, used vehicles tied to Halem’s DriveLA rental business, entered the unit with an access code from a conspirator, and restrained victims with handcuffs.
- Halem still faces separate pending state charges, including alleged insurance fraud and a second crypto-related robbery from days earlier, and his three alleged co-defendants have not yet been tried.
- The case comes as state and federal prosecutors increasingly bring robbery and Hobbs Act charges in schemes that impersonate officers to seize crypto, a shift that could prompt more coordinated investigations and tougher sentences for similar violent attacks.