Maserati-driving pimp, armed with a gun, receives 105 month sentence after judge says he cannot factor in firearm trading and rape allegations

April 22, 2024

A drug-dealing pimp was sentenced to 105 months imprisonment this morning at San Francisco federal courthouse – and narrowly avoided a much stiffer term when the judge decided he could not take account of prosecutors’ evidence that the defendant raped a city visitor and sold guns.

Lamar Ryan stole money from a prostitute and brandished a firearm in an effort to force her to work for him. While handcuffed in a patrol car he managed to take the gun from a ‘belly band’ holster, that was missed by officers in a pat down search, and hide it under the vehicle’s passenger seat.

Videos captured on Ryan’s cellphones showed him displaying a pistol converted to fire as a machine gun, and a ‘ghost gun’ equipped with a drum magazine. Two other guns were found at his home. The court heard disturbing allegations that he raped a female city visitor at gunpoint.

Ryan was earlier found guilty, after a bench trial, of being a felon in possession of the firearm concealed in the patrol car.

“Your Honor, I’ve made a dramatic change,” he told a federal judge in Los Angeles in 2021.

“Your profession of your rehabilitation to Judge Kronstadt after your conviction for bank fraud was either a complete lie or it was just wholly untrue,” U.S. District Judge William Orrick told him this morning as he imposed a custodial term of eight years and nine months.

On July 1 2023 Ryan robbed a sex worker at the San Francisco motel where she was plying her trade. He had paid her $500 for sex but, afterwards, took the money back. He told her she should work for him.

The victim felt that she had no choice but to allow herself to be taken to a hotel in South San Francisco. Ryan showed her his Glock handgun which further intimidated her. She was able to text a relative to let them know she was being held under duress, was being forced to sell herself, and was afraid for her safety. That relative contacted South San Francisco Police who responded immediately to a location where they came across Lamar and the woman in a gray sedan.

Ryan was handcuffed, patted down, and put in the back of a police patrol car. Unbeknownst to officers, he then removed an undetected Glock handgun from a ‘belly band’ holster and concealed it underneath the passenger seat of the patrol vehicle. It remained there until, later at the station, officers attempting to reconcile the lack of a gun with the victim’s adamant insistence that there was one, viewed camera footage of their car’s interior which showed what had happened. They then recovered the firearm.

Ryan was charged with being a felon in possession of that firearm. Later searches of his various cellphones showed him displaying a pistol converted to fire as a machine gun, and a ‘ghost gun’ equipped with a drum magazine. There was also evidence of him dealing guns and drugs.

Two different handguns were found in a closet during a search of his home.

Following a bench trial in December 2023 Ryan was found guilty of possessing the gun found by South San Francisco police.

The court was told that Ryan’s gun arrest came while he was on supervised release after serving a federal prison term for bank fraud. While awaiting sentencing on that case he was caught trying to recruit an underage girl working as a prostitute in San Francisco’s Mission District. For this activity he pleaded guilty in June 2021 to two misdemeanors and received a 2 day time served sentence.

Prosecutors also alleged that Ryan raped a woman at gunpoint in a five star San Francisco hotel in 2022. A hotel guest in an adjacent room told police she heard sounds of an assault coming from the victim’s room followed by cries for help. The victim was hit in the head multiple times.

This morning, in courtroom 2 of San Francisco federal courthouse, U.S. District Judge William Orrick told prosecutors that he would not take account of the rape allegation.

Describing it as “an incredibly serious charge” the judge said that it seemed to him to be an independent crime rather than something that ought to be considered as ‘relevant conduct’. He noted that the case was not pursued because of the victim’s seeming reluctance to continue to work with police.

The judge also found that insufficient evidence had been presented as to whether the guns in the photos and videos captured on Ryan’s phone were real.

“I want to apologize to the court and society,” said Ryan this morning. “I’m ready to pay back the debt I owe society.”

“The government’s evidence suggests you have been involved in a lot more than what I’m sentencing you for today,” Judge Orrick told the defendant, alluding to the rape and firearms allegations.

“I also think you’ve been in almost constant violation of your conditions of release from the time when you were released.”

“Your profession of your rehabilitation to Judge Kronstadt after your conviction for bank fraud was either a complete lie or it was just wholly untrue.”

“That weighs on me,” said the judge.

“I am concerned by your failure to do what you told Judge Kronstadt what you were going to do.”

Orrick handed down a sentence of 105 months for the firearms offense. A separate sentence for Ryan’s violations of his conditions of supervised release will run concurrently to the ‘headline’ term.

In addition to his conviction for bank fraud, Ryan has an extensive criminal history including seven separate state convictions.