Two Los Angeles County officers have been charged, and another has pleaded guilty in connection with a conspiracy to violate civil rights, staging fake raids, and using fraudulent search warrants to track victims for Adam Iza's criminal enterprise, a self-proclaimed cryptocurrency entrepreneur known as "The Godfather."
Details of the case and charges
Adam Iza, 24, the founder of the crypto trading company Zort, pleaded guilty in January to conspiracy against civil rights, wire fraud, and tax evasion. He has been in custody since September 2024.
David Anthony Rodriguez, a LASD officer, pleaded guilty to conspiracy against civil rights for abusing police authority. Christopher Michael Cadman, another officer, agreed to plead guilty after admitting to working directly for Iza and helping to threaten a victim through an armed confrontation and a staged traffic stop. These two officers "exploited their positions in law enforcement while providing personal security for clients off-duty."
In August 2021, Cadman and another LASD officer held a victim at gunpoint in Iza's mansion in Bel Air, forcing the individual to transfer $25,000 to Iza's bank account. A month later, Cadman helped stage a traffic stop to arrest the same victim without a valid law enforcement purpose. Rodriguez also admitted to obtaining a fraudulent search warrant in July 2022 to obtain GPS tracking data to locate a victim for a private security client, then shared this information with an accomplice to "harass, threaten, and intimidate" the victim.
Cadman received at least $40,500 in cash from Iza that he did not report for tax purposes. The case also revealed that Iza distributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to law enforcement contacts and impersonated an FBI agent. Iza's ex-girlfriend also pleaded guilty to failing to report $2.6 million from his activities.
Rodriguez faces up to 10 years in prison.
