Eric Chase Saavedra, 42, of Chino, pleaded guilty in February 2025 to conspiracy against rights and filing a false tax return. U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson also ordered him to pay $90,984 in restitution and to forfeit a haul of luxury goods bought with the proceeds: 32 Louis Vuitton bags, 27 pairs of Gucci shoes, five Louis Vuitton wallets and a money-counting machine.
A search warrant built on a lie
According to court documents, Saavedra’s crimes trace back to his work for Adam Iza, a self-styled cryptocurrency businessman who paid off-duty LASD deputies to act as his personal enforcers. Iza, then living in a Bel Air mansion, hired Saavedra’s private security firm, Saavedra & Associates LLC, for round-the-clock protection at roughly $100,000 a month.
The relationship went far beyond bodyguard work. Starting in late 2021, Saavedra allegedly used his LASD credentials to pull personal information on people Iza had disputes with, along with their associates and families, and fed it back to Iza.
The most serious incident: Iza believed a victim was holding a laptop containing more than $100 million in cryptocurrency. He and Saavedra agreed the deputy would get a warrant for the victim’s phone location.
In January 2022, Saavedra applied to a Los Angeles Superior Court judge and lied in his sworn affidavit, claiming the number was linked to a firearms suspect. The warrant was granted.
Saavedra tracked the victim down and handed Iza the address. The following month, three armed men tried to force their way into the victim’s home to steal the laptop. They fled only after the victim fired a shot in their direction. Iza later sent his victim a video of the failed break-in.
The fifth domino to fall
Saavedra also admitted to hiding $373,146 in income he received from Iza and filing a false 2021 tax return.
He’s not the first LASD deputy to go down over the Iza case, and prosecutors say he won’t be the last name on the list:
- Michael David Coberg, 45, is serving 63 months for helping Iza extort a rival and arrange a sham drug arrest against another adversary.
- Scott Allen Simpkins, 34, got 18 months for obstructing a federal probe into Iza’s $25,000 extortion of a party planner at his Bel Air home.
- David Anthony Rodriguez, 45, was sentenced to a year for submitting a false warrant application on behalf of a different Iza-connected client.
- Christopher Michael Cadman, 34, got 21 months earlier this month for the same pattern: threatening Iza’s adversaries and cheating on his taxes.
- Iris Rabaya Au, 37, Iza’s former girlfriend, was sentenced separately to 18 months and ordered to repay $1,484,343 for hiding more than $2.6 million she made off his criminal activity.
Iza is already behind bars, and facing more time
Iza, 26, has been in federal custody since his September 2024 arrest. He’s currently serving 15 years for an attempted armed robbery of bitcoin and a kidnapping in Connecticut. He also pleaded guilty in January 2025 to conspiracy against rights, wire fraud and tax evasion in this case, with his sentencing set for October 5 in front of the same judge, Percy Anderson.
The FBI and IRS Criminal Investigation led the probe, with LASD’s own cooperation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Maxwell K. Coll of the Justice Department’s National Security Division prosecuted the case.
Why it matters
The case is a rare, documented look at how far a crypto fortune can reach when it’s aimed at buying badges instead of just bodyguards.
Five sworn or formerly sworn law enforcement officers, plus a civilian accomplice, have now been sentenced for turning real police power, database access, search warrants, court credibility, into tools for a private citizen’s vendettas. And the string of home-invasion-style crimes it enabled suggests the danger wasn’t hypothetical.
With Iza’s own sentencing still ahead, the case is likely to generate at least one more headline before it’s closed.
