A former Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputy was sentenced Monday to 18 months behind bars for blocking a federal probe by falsely claiming he never witnessed a self-styled cryptocurrency mogul threaten and extort $25,000 from a party planner at his Bel Air mansion.
Scott Allen Simpkins, 34, of Brea, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson, who fined him $10,000.
Simpkins pleaded guilty in March in Los Angeles federal court to one count of obstruction of justice. He resigned from LASD’s Special Enforcement Bureau after pleading guilty to the felony.
According to his plea agreement, Simpkins was a deputy assigned to LASD’s Lakewood Station and worked for the department’s Special Enforcement Bureau and SWAT team. He also worked about six to eight shifts as a private security guard for Saavedra & Associates and received cash payments for his services.
Saavedra & Associates was a private security company owned and operated by then-LASD deputy and former federal task force officer Eric Chase Saavedra, 43, of Chino. The company employed active LASD deputies and other law enforcement officers to provide security services for private clients.
One of those clients was Adam Iza, 25, who resided in Beverly Hills and Newport Beach, was a self-styled cryptocurrency businessman who called himself “Godfather,” and who has been in federal custody since September 2024. Iza pleaded guilty in January 2025 to one count of conspiracy against rights, one count of wire fraud, and one count of tax evasion, and awaits sentencing, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Last month, Iza pleaded guilty in a Connecticut federal court to conspiracy to interfere with commerce by robbery related to his involvement in an attempted robbery of Bitcoin and a kidnapping in Danbury, Connecticut, in August 2024.
In August 2021, Iza hired Simpkins, fellow then-LASD Deputy Christopher Michael Cadman, 34, of Fullerton, and other law enforcement officers to provide private security at a party at his Bel Air mansion. At the time, Simpkins knew Iza possessed at least one firearm, court papers show.
After the party ended, at around 3 a.m. or 4 a.m. on Aug. 15, 2021, Simpkins learned the party planner — identified in court documents as R.C. — had been kicked out of the party for erratic behavior.
The next day, Simpkins worked another shift at Iza’s Bel Air mansion and — along with Cadman — escorted R.C. to Iza’s office and threatened him.
During the meeting, Iza accessed R.C.’s phone after demanding that $25,000 be transferred from R.C.’s bank account to an Iza-controlled account, prosecutors said.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, after the incident, Iza hired Saavedra & Associates as his private security provider and made substantial payments to Saavedra and his employees. Simpkins and Cadman each earned $1,400 for their shifts during the August 2021 party and the incident with R.C.
In response to Simpkins and Cadman helping to secure a long-term contract with Iza, Saavedra & Associates paid them nearly 10% of the company’s total profits for the contract’s first month, prosecutors said.
After Iza’s arrest in September 2024 and the R.C.-related conduct being charged — along with other crimes — in a federal criminal complaint and an indictment against Iza, the FBI executed a search warrant on Simpkins and seized his phone.
In a November 2024 meeting with federal law enforcement concerning Iza and corrupt LASD deputies and in which Simpkins was warned that lying would result in criminal prosecution, officials said Simpkins lied repeatedly to FBI agents and federal prosecutors that he saw no ammunition or shell casings inside Iza’s office during the incident with victim R.C. Simpkins further lied when he said he saw no financial transactions occur.
Simpkins admitted in his plea agreement that he knew his lies had the natural and probable effect of interfering with the criminal investigation and legal proceedings against Iza and were material to the investigation.
In addition to Iza, Saavedra and Cadman, among others, have pleaded guilty to federal criminal charges and await sentencing in downtown Los Angeles.
Former LASD Deputy Michael David Coberg, 44, of Eastvale, is serving a federal prison sentence of five years and three months and was ordered to pay $127,000 in restitution for helping Iza extort a rival and arrange the sham illegal drug possession arrest of another adversary in Paramount in 2021.