Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Marc Antrim is seen in an undated photo provided to the Los Angeles Times by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California.
A former employee at a downtown Los Angeles marijuana warehouse was sentenced Monday to 14 years in prison for orchestrating a $2 million armed robbery with a corrupt Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputy, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
The Walnut man, 30-year-old Christopher Myung Kim, was “bitterly disgruntled” after a dispute with the warehouse owners and started conspiring with then-Sheriff’s Deputy Marc Antrim, 42, to pull off a raid at the warehouse “both for profit and to get revenge against his own bosses,” the Department of Justice said in a news release.
Kim gave the deputy details about the warehouse’s layout, operation and security, including where security guards would be stationed and where to find the most valuable items, authorities said.
In the early hours of Oct. 29, 2018, Antrim arrived at the warehouse, clad in his L.A. Sheriff’s Department uniform and flashing his badge and a fake search warrant.
He had six other people with him posing as a law enforcement team, wearing police-style duty belts and holstered handguns.
Together they detained the warehouse’s security guards in the back of a department vehicle for two hours while they robbed the warehouse, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
They stole more than half a ton of marijuana, over $600,000 in cash and money orders and other valuable items, according to the news release.
Kim ended up getting $1.5 million dollars’ worth of stolen marijuana to sell.
The bogus raid was uncovered when an attorney for the warehouse later contacted the Sheriff’s Department.
During his trial last year, Kim was found guilty of conspiracy to distribute marijuana, possession with intent to distribute marijuana, conspiracy against rights, deprivation of rights under color of law and brandishing a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime. A judge also ordered him to pay a $500,000 fine.
Antrim, who was assigned to the Sheriff Department’s Temple City station at the time of the robbery, was arrested in November 2018 and he pleaded guilty to multiple felonies. He also testified about how he devised and executed the robbery with Kim’s help, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
Antrim’s sentencing hearing is scheduled for April 13.
Five other people have also pleaded guilty to criminal charges for their involvement in the robbery and are expected to be sentenced in the coming months.
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