Four former law-enforcement officials, including two who worked as Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies, face federal charges for carrying out a raid at the behest of a Chinese national engaged in a legal battle with a business partner who lived in Irvine, authorities said, making threats and demanding nearly $37 million.
The four defendants were accused of taking an unmarked Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department vehicle to the Irvine home on June 17, 2019, forcing the business partner, his wife and their two sons into a room, taking their phones and threatening to deport the parents and separate them from their 4-year-old son if the man didn’t transfer his assets — the money and his shares in the rubber-chemical manufacturing company they shared — to the Chinese national, said Ciaran McEvoy, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
The four defendants, who all pleaded not guilty on Monday, Aug. 12, in federal court in downtown Los Angeles and were ordered released on bond:
— Steven Arthur Lankford, 68, of Canyon Country– Glen Louis Cozart, 63, of Upland– Max Samuel Bennett Turbett, 39, of Australia– Matthew Phillip Hart, 41, of Australia
All four were running their own private businesses at the time of their arrests, McEvoy said.
Lankford and Cozart are former LASD deputies, with Lankford still working for the department when the raid was carried out. Cozart worked for the department from 1982 to 1995, according to an indictment, while Lankford left the department in 2020, federal officials said. Turbett is a United Kingdom citizen and a former member of the British military, while Hart is a former member of the Australian military.
They each face charges of conspiracy to commit extortion, attempted extortion, conspiracy against rights and deprivation of rights under color of the law, McEvoy said.
“It is critical that we hold public officials, including law enforcement officers, to the same standards as the rest of us,” United States Attorney Martin Estrada said in a statement. “It is unacceptable and a serious civil-rights violation for a sworn police officer to take the law into his own hands and abuse the authority of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.”
The Chinese national whose request prompted the raid, a woman, is not facing a charge and was not named by authorities. She was embroiled in a lengthy business dispute with the victim, which resulted in at least three lawsuits in China and one in Atlanta, McEvoy said.
Growing impatient, the Chinese woman reached out to Turbett in December 2018 to help get assets from the victim and said the “long and costly litigation had not been ‘the smart way’ to handle her dispute,” McEvoy said.
She also asked Turbett in an email to find, the spokesman said, quoting her, “(a) different solution to finish the problem. … We can both retire.”
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Turbett then hired Cozart; he brought on Lankford, who, against LASD policy, searched for the victim’s name and date of birth in the National Crime Information Center database, authorities said. Turbett and Hart flew in from Australia to Los Angeles, where the four men met to discuss their plans, the authorities said.
Lankford drove the men to Irvine in the unmarked LASD vehicle and Lankford identified himself to the family as a police officer, while Cozart lied and said he was an immigration officer, McEvoy said.
While inside the home for more than two hours, Hart slammed the victim against the wall and choked him as he tried to escape and run down the stairs toward the front door, then shoved the victim’s 21-year-old son, causing him to hit his head against a wall, when he tried to intervene, according to the indictment.
The victim, fearing for his safety and that of his family, signed the documents and relinquished his multi-million dollar interest in the company, McEvoy said. After the men left, the victim immediately called Irvine police despite being told that doing so would result in his arrest and deportation.
It is unclear if the victim ended up losing any money.
Lankford lied to Irvine police and claimed he had been at the home for a legitimate law-enforcement purpose and that no force was used, McEvoy said.
The men were paid by the Chinese national for their efforts by November 2019, McEvoy said. Turbett’s company received more than $400,000, with the woman emailing him to thank him for a “very good job.”
If convicted as charged, the men face a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison for each extortion-related count and up to 10 years for each deprivation of rights-related count, McEvoy said.
“The defendants in this case allegedly believed they could carry out vigilante justice by using official police powers to enter the home of vulnerable victims and extorting them out of millions of dollars,” said Akil Davis, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office, in a statement. “The FBI will not tolerate civil-rights violations by anyone who takes the law into their own hands for personal gain or otherwise.”
