A former Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Division deputy has been sentenced to 18 months in federal jail after admitting he lied to federal investigators about threats made by a cryptocurrency businessman throughout a 2021 extortion incident.
Abstract
- A former Los Angeles sheriff’s deputy was sentenced to 18 months in jail for lying to federal investigators in a crypto-related extortion case.
- Prosecutors stated the deputy witnessed Adam Iza threaten a sufferer with stay ammunition earlier than demanding a $25,000 fee.
- Iza stays in federal custody after a number of responsible pleas, together with his function in a bitcoin-linked kidnapping conspiracy in Connecticut.
The U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace for the Central District of California said U.S. District Decide Percy Anderson additionally imposed a $10,000 effective on Scott Allen Simpkins, who pleaded responsible on March 17 to at least one depend of obstruction of justice. Simpkins resigned from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Division’s Particular Enforcement Bureau after coming into his felony plea, based on the workplace.
Federal prosecutors stated Simpkins falsely denied witnessing cryptocurrency businessman Adam Iza threaten a sufferer with stay ammunition throughout an incident at Iza’s Bel Air house in 2021.
Court docket data cited by the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace stated Simpkins was working personal safety on the residence with fellow former LASD deputy Christopher Michael Cadman. Each males had been employed by Saavedra & Associates, a personal safety firm owned by then-LASD Deputy Eric Chase Saavedra.
In line with prosecutors, Iza positioned 4 or 5 stay 9mm rounds on his desk, spun one of many bullets whereas threatening the sufferer, and demanded a $25,000 switch earlier than Simpkins and Cadman escorted the sufferer off the property.
The U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace stated the 2 deputies obtained $1,400 every for their work that day. After serving to Saavedra & Associates safe a longer-term safety contract with Iza, the corporate paid every of them about 10% of its earnings from the contract’s first month, prosecutors added.
Iza nonetheless awaits sentencing
Separate federal circumstances in opposition to Iza have continued to maneuver ahead.
The U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace stated Iza has remained in federal custody since September 2024 after pleading responsible in California in January 2025 to conspiracy in opposition to rights, wire fraud, and tax evasion. He has not but been sentenced in that case.
In a separate prosecution, the U.S. Division of Justice announced in June that Iza additionally pleaded responsible in federal court docket in Connecticut to conspiracy to intervene with commerce by theft. The cost carries a most jail sentence of 20 years.
In line with the Justice Division, the Connecticut case concerned a 2024 kidnapping plot concentrating on the dad and mom of Veer Chetal, a person accused of collaborating in the theft of about 4,100 bitcoin. Prosecutors stated Iza and his brother, Saif Faiq, organised the scheme in an try to extort cryptocurrency.
As pre DOJ data, Faiq pleaded guilty on June 9, when he admitted recruiting six males from Florida, arranging their journey to Connecticut, and coordinating surveillance earlier than the assault in Danbury. Prosecutors stated the group allegedly compelled Sushil and Radhika Chetal from their car after staging a collision, assaulted them, and briefly held them captive. The six alleged attackers later pleaded responsible to kidnapping and carjacking offences, based on the division.
Federal data cited by the DOJ present Veer Chetal individually pleaded responsible in November 2025 to expenses linked to the theft of roughly 4,100 bitcoin and is awaiting sentencing.
