A former LAPD officer was denied bail on Friday after appearing in court on allegations of kidnapping and attempted theft of $350,000 in digital assets. The former LAPD officer, Eric Halem, was charged in court with his accomplice, Gabby Ben, who prosecutors alleged had ties to the Israeli Mafia.
According to reports, both men were part of a six-team gang that invaded the home of a 17-year-old teenager in the Hollywood Hills with a plot to kidnap the teen. Their 17-year-old target operated a cryptocurrency business.
Deputy District Attorney Jane Brownstone disclosed details of the alleged kidnapping at the bail hearings of the alleged gangster and the former LAPD officer, Eric Halem. Both men pleaded not guilty to the charges against them.
Former LAPD officer arraigned on plot to kidnap and steal crypto
According to court documents, Gabby Ben, the 51-year-old with ties to the Israeli Mafia, has twice been convicted of fraud and deported to Israel. He appeared in court in a blue jail jumpsuit and wore a yarmulke and a towel around his neck. Reports noted that he shrugged and shook his head when Brownstone announced to the court that he had ties to the Israeli Mafia.
The court filing also noted that 38-year-old Eric Halem, who appeared in court in an orange jumpsuit, served 13 years in the LAPD. By the time he left the LAPD in 2022, he had developed several lucrative side hustles, including a luxury car rental business and an application that allowed actors to audition remotely. According to the Times, his former associates mentioned that he was looking into the idea of developing a reality show about his life.
According to Brownstone, Halem, Ben, and four other men drove in two vehicles, Ben’s rented Lamborghini Urus and a Range Rover, to a luxury high-rise in Koreatown where the alleged victim lived. Brownstone noted that the men got to the apartment around 2 AM on December 28, 2024. After arriving, they punched in the access code to the victim’s apartment. They discovered the victim was not home, but found his girlfriend, whom they restrained with LAPD-issued handcuffs.
Brownstone claimed that all six men were bearing firearms, noting that they claimed they were from the Los Angeles Police Department and were there to execute a search warrant. When the victim returned home, the men restrained him and demanded that he open the crypto wallet on his phone and computer. Brownstone noted that the teen tried to call their bluff by showing an empty wallet, noting that they threatened to torture him if he didn’t cooperate.
The suspects threatened violence against the victim
Brownstone told the court that the intruders told the victim in clear terms that they were going to shoot him in the foot and waterboard him if he refused to surrender the crypto in his possession. Advancing their threat, she claimed they turned on the shower. After the threats, the victim provided the former LAPD officer and his gang with the code to a safe that held digital assets stored on a thumb drive, with the wallet containing $350,000 in crypto.
Surveillance footage showed Ben, Halem, and the other intruders leaving the victim’s apartment building about 25 minutes after they entered, according to the prosecutor. They did not touch other valuables in the safe and only scattered the apartment. Halem’s attorney, Megan Maitia, cast doubts on the alleged motive for the case, questioning how a young man had accumulated so much crypto. She claimed that it was not her client who threatened the teenager, but another member.
Brownstone told the court that the police were still searching for the suspect in question. Maitia also asked the court to grant her client bail, noting that he was a father of two, who is now broke. She noted that his home was now in liens, and he had sold a prop plane that prosecutors cited when arguing that he was a flight risk. She also added that he was in danger in the county jails, noting that he worked as an LAPD officer to put some of the criminals in jail.