SAN FRANCISCO — If a court filing by federal prosecutors is any indication, the allegations against Ricci Wynne are even worse than previously believed.
Wynne, a 39-year-old right-wing social media influencer, is already facing state charges of pimping a woman in San Francisco, and a federal indictment on charges of possessing child sexual abuse material of two girls. But in a court filing, prosecutors revealed he is also suspected of sexually abusing girls, one who met him when she was 12, and was allegedly sexually abused by Wynne on camera at age 13.
“(Wynne’s) established track record of sexually abusing children demonstrates he should be detained,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Cheng wrote in the document. He added that after being released in a prior drug case Wynne “almost immediately” began “contacting children as young as 12 or 13 and then sexually abusing them.”
“Evidence recently identified by investigators shows (Wynne) not only sexually abused children, but further video recorded many of his sexual acts with them,” Cheng added.
The document, filed in December but not previously reported, gives the public its best glimpse into the allegations against a man who has made a career as an influencer and commentator by highlighting the worst aspects of life in San Francisco. He posted a widely-viewed “Mister Rogers” parody that went viral, depicting a trash-and-graffiti filled city alleyway, and has appeared as a Fox News guest, mocking safe consumption sites and other progressive policies.
But according to federal prosecutors, while Wynne was railing against the political status quo, he was harboring dark secrets. In 2018, authorities investigated a tip that he was involved in pimping and pandering, but found evidence he advertised a “cocaine buffet” online, resulting in a federal drug case based in San Francisco.
The case ended with a request from prosecutors for a 12-year prison term, highlighting their suspicions about “human trafficking” and arguing he sold cocaine while armed, and was with a teen girl when he was arrested. The defense, though, convinced U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer to forgo jail altogether, portraying Wynne 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.
But after getting out of jail, while still on supervised release, Wynne began grooming girls, prosecutors allege. He met one when she was 14, then allegedly sexually abused her when she turned 15. Police later found videos on Wynne’s electronic devices showing him “in multiple types of sex acts with a juvenile victim that appears to the officer to be in her early teens at the underdeveloped puberty stage.”
The girl, identified in court as Minor Victim 2, was later identified by a school resource officer who knows her. Police believe she was 12 when Wynne met her, and 13 when the alleged sexual abuse occurred.
All the while, Wynne was building his public persona as a reformed ex-drug dealer who was concerned about San Francisco’s descent into fentanyl-plagued chaos. He amassed more than 100,000 Instagram followers, mocked the city’s inability to curb homelessness and frequently posted impromptu video interviews, sometimes confrontational, with homeless people or suspected drug addicts.
The pimping charge, which involves allegations he pandered a woman, involves a police raid that turned up $79,900 in currency, prosecutors allege.
Wynne is behind bars at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin and cannot be bailed out, records show. He is next due in court March 26, where he is set to appear in front of the same judge, Breyer, who declined to send him to prison in 2021.
