90-month federal sentence for gunpoint robbery of Tenderloin nonprofit worker amid leniency bid by progressive medics
A man guilty of the gunpoint robbery of a San Francisco nonprofit worker was handed a 90-month sentence today in federal court — despite lobbying by a cadre of progressive doctors from Zuckerberg General Hospital, who urged leniency due to his sickle cell diagnosis.
Lafayette Davenport earlier pleaded guilty to brandishing a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence, being a felon in possession of a firearm and carjacking. This stemmed from an August 2023 incident when Davenport pointed a gun at the driver of an AIDS Foundation vehicle in the city’s Tenderloin district.
He was subsequently arrested with a loaded .40 caliber Smith & Wesson pistol.
Five doctors wrote letters detailing their view that treatment for sickle cell disease often cannot be delivered in prison and that alternatives to incarceration ought to be considered in Davenport’s case.
One of those medics, Ariel Franks, elsewhere said she “can’t stand” sheriffs at the hospital, wants to abolish the police and decries “the racist treatment of [b]lack patients and violence against [b]lack bodies that is perpetuated daily.”
“This is someone who has gone through his life committing one crime after another and getting off easy because he has sickle cell anemia,” observed an unsentimental U.S. District Judge William Alsup this morning.
Just before midday on August 24 2023, Davenport carjacked the driver of a San Francisco AIDS Foundation vehicle on Jones Street.
The victim was returning to his car after collecting used needles when he was waylaid by Davenport, wearing a black ski mask, who demanded his watch.
“Don’t make me shoot you,” Davenport told the man.
“Hurry up nigga, or I will shoot you right now,” he added.
The victim gave up his watch and looked on as Davenport then tried to steal the car, only for it to stall before it had gone more than two car lengths from where it was parked. Davenport then ran off.
The court was told of the lengthy criminal history Davenport has amassed since his first conviction in 2013 — which includes multiple gunpoint robberies across San Francisco in 2020 and firearms possession in 2015 and 2018. The maximum sentence he has previously served has been eight months in county jail.
“It is time,” wrote assistant U.S. attorney Sara Henderson in her sentencing memorandum, “that Davenport serve an appropriate sentence to protect the public from his increasingly dangerous conduct that includes the use of deadly firearms.”
For the defense, public defender Elizabeth Falk pointed to her client’s remorse, his deprived upbringing, and to the effects of his sickle cell disease diagnosis.
“As explained by numerous doctors at San Francisco General Hospital,” Falk wrote in a court memorandum, “incarceration is particularly onerous on sickle cell disease patients because incarcerated persons do not have control over daily facets of their lives.”
Letters from five Zuckerberg SFGH medics were submitted to the court to bolster this point.
“Effective management of [sickle cell disease]…” wrote Ariel Franks MD in her letter, “requires consistent access to medical care, adequate hydration, and a supportive environment – conditions that are often unable to be met in a jail setting.”
Franks also referred to the crowded conditions, limited hygeine and stress exprienced by inmates that are detrimental to sickle cell disease sufferers’ health.
“I am in agreement with my colleagues that Mr Davenport…would greatly benefit from alternatives to incarceration,” she concluded.
Dr Franks’ opinion, and indeed perhaps her decision to intervene at all, may have been colored by her trenchant views of law enforcement and custodial officers.
“I can’t stand the presence of the sheriffs at my hospital,” she said in a 2021 interview, “or the racist treatment of [b]lack patient and violence against [b]lack bodies that is perpetuated daily…I believe in abolition of police and am working to defund them first in the space that I work.”
Other letter writers include Diana Coffa MD, a professor of family community medicine, whose most recently published medical paper is her 2025 work ‘Promoting Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Anti-oppression’.
The victim worked for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation — an organization which, prosecutors observed, is partially funded by the city’s Department of Public Health. That department also runs the general hospital where the doctors practice.
Sickle cell disease symptoms are frequently used by criminal defendants to absolve themselves of responsibility for violent crimes in San Francisco and elsewhere.
“It is a severe record,” said Judge Alsup this morning as he cast his eyes over the defendant’s criminal history in courtroom 12 of San Francisco federal courthouse.
“I think the background of a terrible upbringing, those are legitimate factors that might excuse stealing a loaf of bread out of a grocery store,” said the judge, “but everyone in the universe knows… you can’t brandish a gun and carjack someone.”
“There are some crimes that you can’t excuse based on you having terrible parents and dropped out of school. This is one of those crimes in my humble opinion.”
“I’m sincerely sorry,” Lafayette Davenport told the judge.
“I am going to use this time to better myself so nothing like this will ever occur again in my life.”
Alsup imposed a 90 month sentence.
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