Two LA Sheriff deputies acknowledged using their side gigs in private security to assist in extorting victims, including for a local cryptocurrency tycoon.
The jailed crypto extorter known as “The Godfather” is among the private security customers that two deputies from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department have acknowledged using their law enforcement authority to assist.
According to the Department of Justice, Christopher Michael Cadman agreed to confess to conspiracy against rights and subscribe to a false tax return on Monday. In contrast, David Anthony Rodriguez entered a guilty plea to one count of conspiracy against rights.
Adam Iza, who operated the cryptocurrency trading website Zort and is also known as Ahmed Faiq and “The Godfather,” was among the deputies who “used their positions in law enforcement while acting as private security for their off-duty clients,” according to the Justice Department.
After prosecutors claimed that Iza hired three LASD deputies, including Rodriguez and Cadman, to illegally seek search warrants and access police records to extort at least one victim out of their cryptocurrency, Iza entered a guilty plea to conspiracy against rights, wire fraud, and tax evasion in January.
At gunpoint, Cadman assisted in threatening the victim.
According to the prosecution, in August 2021, Cadman and another deputy, only identified as “LASD Deputy 6,” intimidated and threatened a victim who was one of Iza’s adversaries.
LASD Deputy 6 met with the victim at his Bel Air mansion office while holding him at gunpoint. The DOJ said that in response to the threat and demand, the victim immediately sent around $25,000 from his bank account to Iza’s bank account.
Cadman and other law enforcement officials apprehended the same victim during a traffic stop in September 2021. He acknowledged that he had assisted in “arranging the traffic stop and arrest on Iza’s behalf.”
Additionally, he neglected to include at least $40,500 in his 2021 tax return.
According to the Justice Department, Cadman will appear in federal court “in the coming days” and could be sentenced to up to 13 years in prison.
Rodriguez located the victim by using search warrants.
In a guilty deal, Rodriguez acknowledged lying to a judge to get a search warrant in July 2022 for a client other than Iza, who had employed him as private security, despite the prosecution’s claims that Iza had hired Rodriguez.
Although the order was obtained to obtain the GPS location of a victim’s phone for his client, he falsely stated it was connected to a robbery investigation.
Iza also employed Eric Chase Saavedra, an LASD deputy who entered a guilty plea in February for conspiracy against rights and filing a false tax return. Rodriguez discussed the location with him.
The Justice Department said that “LASD deputies and other co-conspirators would harass, threaten, and intimidate the victim using information obtained from the court-authorized search warrant.”
Rodriguez faces a maximum penalty of ten years in jail; his sentencing was set for November 10.
Saavedra faces up to 13 years in jail and is now free on a $50,000 bond. According to the Justice Department, his sentencing is anticipated “in the coming months.”
Crypto Godfather Iza referred to police as his “pawns.”
An FBI statement filed in a federal court in Los Angeles in September claims that Iza boasted about paying up to $280,000 a month to the deputies, whom he referred to as his “pawns.”
In a different incident, Iza allegedly utilized police information to try to force an unidentified victim to turn over a laptop that was used to hold cryptocurrency. The victim got threatening texts that included images of his family and automobile, along with his details in a police database.
The Justice Department said in March that Iris Ramaya Au, Iza’s ex-girlfriend, also consented to enter a guilty plea to filing a false tax return “for failing to report more than $2.6 million in ill-gotten gains she obtained via her then-boyfriend’s criminal activities.”
At Iza’s direction, Au set up bank accounts and shell companies for the companies, then used the illegal money to buy or rent expensive automobiles, jewelry, clothing, and real estate and pay around $1 million to LASD deputies.
Before Iza entered a guilty plea, his attorney, Josef Sadat, told Cointelegraph in September that the accusations “are the opposite of his true inner character” and that he “did not develop many healthy relationships” as a result of spending “the majority of his life behind a computer.”
Iza’s cryptocurrency platform brought in “the worst type of blood-sucking characters that Southern California has to offer,” according to Sadat.
The date of Iza’s sentencing hearing is set for December 15. He might spend up to 35 years behind bars.
