A self-styled cryptocurrency businessman who paid Los Angeles County sheriff\u2019s deputies to set people up for arrest and extort money from others was sentenced Monday to more than six years in prison. <\/p>\n
Adam Iza, 26, previously admitted to generating tens of millions of dollars through a fraud scheme, concealing millions in income from the IRS and using his wealth to employ and corrupt sworn law enforcement officers.<\/p>\n
U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson ordered that Iza\u2019s term run concurrent with a 15-year prison sentence he is currently serving for his involvement in an attempted robbery of Bitcoin and a kidnapping in Connecticut in August 2024 \u2014 meaning he will not serve additional time.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe cultivated relationships with sworn law enforcement officers and used those relationships to further his personal and financial interests,\u201d Anderson said.<\/p>\n
Iza, a former resident of Beverly Hills and Newport Beach, pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy against rights, wire fraud and tax evasion. At least five former sheriff\u2019s deputies tied to the case have been sentenced to prison.<\/p>\n
\u201cJudge Anderson is a godsend,\u201d Josef Sadat, Iza\u2019s attorney, said after the sentencing hearing Monday.<\/p>\n
As part of his plea agreement, Iza agreed to forfeit several items purchased as part of the conspiracy, including two Mercedes-Benzes, a Ferrari and dozens of luxury handbags from Hermes, Balenciaga and Louis Vuitton. He also handed over a black-and-yellow Jacob & Co. \u201cGodfather\u201d watch and three \u201cGodfather\u201d sculptures.<\/p>\n
During the sentencing hearing, Iza said he took \u201cfull responsibility\u201d for his actions.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just want to make it very clear that I\u2019m not here to skirt the law or make excuses,\u201d he said, as one of his family members cried in the gallery. \u201cI understand what I\u2019ve done and I apologize for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to his lawyer, Iza grew up poor during his childhood in Iraq, borrowing a computer from his uncle before coming to the U.S. as a teenager and building a lucrative cryptocurrency trading platform known as Zort.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors in L.A. had asked for a nearly five-year prison sentence.<\/p>\n
\u201cA substantial custodial sentence is necessary to deter other private clients from attempting to corrupt law-enforcement officers by paying them to perform acts they could never lawfully accomplish themselves,\u201d Assistant U.S. Atty. Maxwell Coll said in a sentencing memo.<\/p>\n
The judge said that, in weighing the sentence, he considered Iza\u2019s history and characteristics, including childhood displacement from Iraq, separation from his parents, neglect, poverty, physical abuse and prolonged social isolation.<\/p>\n
Anderson ordered Iza to pay more than $23 million in restitution to the IRS, as well as $127,000 to one victim and $25,000 to another. A court hearing is set for December to determine what is owed to other victims.<\/p>\n
Iza admitted to hiring off-duty sheriff\u2019s deputies to provide him with personal security from August 2021 through April 2022. A slew of crimes occurred over that time, according to his plea agreement. <\/p>\n
Iza admitted that he conspired with the deputies to obtain confidential law enforcement information on people he had financial and other disputes with and court-authorized search warrants to track and harass the victims. He further admitted that he enlisted the deputies to intimidate and threaten the victims. <\/p>\n
In one case, at Iza\u2019s direction, two deputies unholstered their firearms in August 2021, as Iza demanded that a victim \u2014 identified only as R.C. \u2014 transfer $25,000 to a Zort bank account that he controlled, according to the plea agreement. Iza also admitted to concocting a plan that resulted in R.C.\u2019s arrest for having illegal drugs in his vehicle. <\/p>\n
The following month, a deputy whose security company Iza paid around $100,000 a month misled a narcotics detective, resulting in a drug raid on R.C.\u2019s home.<\/p>\n
In October 2021, Iza admitted that, at his direction, deputies he employed restrained another victim \u2014 identified only as L.A. \u2014 from leaving Iza\u2019s home. During that time, Iza held L.A. at gunpoint and forced him to transfer $127,000 into one of Iza\u2019s bank accounts, according to the plea agreement. <\/p>\n
The plea agreement referenced at least two other victims, including one identified as E.Z., who Iza believed possessed a laptop containing large amount of cryptocurrency. Iza admitted that one of his bodyguards brandished a firearm at E.Z., at which point the man ran and called 911.<\/p>\n
Iza admitted that, at his direction, deputies obtained personal identifying information on E.Z. and another victim, identified only as D.D, their family members, acquaintances and others. In one case, a deputy lied to get a warrant, falsely claiming he needed to track E.Z.\u2019s cellphone as part of a firearms investigation.<\/p>\n
In March 2022, according to the plea agreement, Iza directed an employee to assault D.D. to try and get the laptop with the large amount of crypto. Later, after Iza told a third party about his desire to have E.Z. relinquish the laptop \u2014 through use of force if necessary \u2014 three armed people forced their way into E.Z.\u2019s home and used firearms to force him to give up the device.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A self-styled cryptocurrency businessman who paid Los Angeles County sheriff\u2019s deputies to set people up for arrest and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":486375,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[38603,190116,7273,1436,190115,1629,87648,1073,131370,48,52,51,47,50,49,1594,1459,46035,2901,54687,2601],"class_list":["post-486374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-adam-iza","tag-additional-time","tag-august","tag-case","tag-e-z","tag-firearm","tag-godfather","tag-home","tag-l-a-deputy","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-other","tag-part","tag-plea-agreement","tag-prison","tag-r-c","tag-victim"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=486374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486374\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/486375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}