A son has been arrested and jailed in connection with a crypto crime that nearly killed his father. The son, who wanted to access his father’s crypto assets but couldn’t because he didn’t have access to his phone, drugged him and took the phone away from him. The events that follow are a rollercoaster ride that includes the father being hospitalized for four days and the son being arrested and charged.
Son Spiked His Father’s Tea
After introducing the latter to the sector, Liam Ghershony, the son, began investing in the cryptocurrency market with his father. The father told the Washington Post that he had made his son a $100,000 investment account partner. The two had invested in cryptocurrencies together, which had resulted in a substantial profit for both of them.
With the investment account now worth much more, both father and son were able to cash out some of their holdings, leaving them with a $350,000 after-tax profit. Problems began to occur as Liam became more paranoid as market values began to fall following the end of the 2017/2018 bull market. Liam’s use of benzodiazepines, to which he had become addicted, increased his paranoia.
Liam had addressed his father about selling the remainder of the portfolio, informing the senior Ghershony that he needed to sell. Instead, the father recalled telling his son that he needed to stop doing drugs.
Liam had devised a plan to liquidate his bitcoin holdings, determined to take matters into his own hands. After spending the day with his father, assisting with the relocation of furnishings into a loft apartment, the two had dinner and then retired for the night. This was when Liam took advantage of the situation by presenting his father with tea laced with “Benzos,” convincing him that the beverage would provide him with vitality.
Ghershony recalls sipping the tea but has no further recollection of it.
Charges for Subsequent Cryptocrime
Liam had successfully recovered his father’s phone and gained access to the account, transferring two-thirds of the portfolio to another cryptocurrency, ethereum. He then left his father in the flat, expecting that he would awaken on his own later. This would not be the case because the father would be missing for two days before being discovered.
When he was transferred to the hospital, it was determined that he had been drugged with a large dose of benzodiazepines, which had caused him to become extremely dehydrated with acute organ dysfunction. The older Ghershony had spent four days in the hospital recovering at the time.
Liam Ghershony was first charged with attempted murder, but the charge was lowered to a lesser penalty because his intentions were not to murder the father. He ultimately pled guilty to the charge of felony assault and was sentenced to 125 days in jail, as well as two months of residential drug and mental health therapy.
Liam now lives in a recovery group home with other addicts and works as a waiter at a restaurant in Rockville.
