SAN FRANCISCO — A Bay Area man who was arrested for possessing a gun and cocaine in 2019 after he allegedly advertised a “cocaine buffet” on Snapchat has been released from jail after two years, following a plea for compassion from his attorney, court records show.
Ricci Wynne, who has been in custody for nearly two years, was sentenced to time served by U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer. Prosecutors had asked for more than 12 years in federal prison.
In June 2019, Wynne pleaded guilty to possessing a 9mm pistol and more than 100 grams of cocaine powder, items found during a January 2019 search of his San Francisco home, but the sentencing was postponed for more than two years, in part because Wynne was undergoing a neuropsychological evaluation, court records show. In their plea for a lesser sentence, Wynne’s attorneys portrayed him as a lifelong victim of abuse who witnessed atrocities as a child, who suffers from a learning disability, and who tried to harm himself multiple times during his jail stay.
When Wynne was a child, his father forced him to retrieve drugs from the body of a woman who had just died of an overdose in a home where they were staying, and when Wynne told the police about it, his father punched him in the head so hard he lost hearing for three days, according to the defense sentencing memo. That was one of several examples of extreme hardships that the defense argued warranted “sympathy” and “compassion,” not prison.
As part of the sentence, Wynne must participate in a drug treatment program, where he was accepted during his jail stay, court records show.
“Mr. Wynne has been abusing substances since he was a young teenager. He has the foresight to understand that his drug use has greatly affected his relationships with family, and friends,” defense attorney Gail Shifman wrote in a sentencing memo for Wynne. “Drugs helped him manage the trauma and difficulties he was surrounded with, while at the same time creating situations that led him to these offenses.”
Prosecutors portrayed Wynne as a lifelong criminal who was arrested by police investigating him for alleged “human and narcotics trafficking.” They say he posted a picture of cocaine and three women, with the caption “cocaine buffet,” on Snapchat, before police obtained a warrant to search his home. During the search, officers found $6,000 in cash and a ski mask, along with a loaded pistol and drugs, prosecutors said. The prosecution sentencing memo says “multiple females including an underage juvenile girl” were also at the home.
Source: www.mercurynews.com