Overview
- Eric Halem, 38, was found guilty by a Los Angeles County jury after less than a day of deliberations for a December 2024 Koreatown home invasion.
- Prosecutors said Halem and three others posed as police, used an access code to enter an 18th-floor apartment, and threatened to kill the teen unless he surrendered a hard drive holding Bitcoin.
- Evidence highlighted police-marked vests, LAPD-issued handcuffs used to restrain the teen’s girlfriend, and texts in which Halem said he was monitoring police radio traffic.
- Jurors heard that the crew arrived in a green Range Rover and an orange Lamborghini Urus tied to Halem’s DriveLA business, while the defense attacked the investigation and noted the victim admitted his crypto came from fraud.
- Halem did not testify and the defense called no witnesses, with co-defendants yet to stand trial as reporters and analysts link the case to a broader rise in coercive crypto thefts.