A 35-year-old Oakland man once convicted in a deadly 2013 shooting has pleaded guilty in federal court to illegally possessing a firearm after police found him with a Glock fitted with a switch that let it fire like a machine gun, along with drugs packaged for sale and $21,000 in cash. Lamar Webster was sentenced to 37 months in prison, with the term backdated to April 2025, according to court records.
A Glock, a Switch, and a Pile of Cash
Oakland police stopped Webster on April 3, 2026, and found him with a Glock equipped with a 22-round magazine and a switch enabling fully automatic fire, according to sfpublicsafety.news. A search of his car also turned up multiple drugs packaged for sale, the outlet reported. Federal prosecutors describe Webster as a suspected member of Oakland's Case gang, according to The Mercury News.
Prosecutors also alleged that weeks earlier, in April 2025, Webster threatened a woman and damaged her car's windshield during a dispute over a parking space, per the same account. The woman told police Webster threatened her by saying, “Bitch I'll smoke you,” according to court filings cited by sfpublicsafety.news. Prosecutors went further, accusing Webster of trying to intimidate the woman out of testifying and alleging he warned her relative that people would “get stomped” unless he got his way, per The Mercury News. That relative was being held at Santa Rita Jail, according to the outlet.
Sentencing Deal and Shakedown Claims on Both Sides
Under the plea agreement, the government and defense attorneys asked the judge to impose a 37-month sentence, and the judge retained the power to reject that proposal and let Webster withdraw his guilty plea, per the earlier report. Webster ultimately received the 37-month sentence for being a felon in possession of a firearm, with the term backdated to April 2025, court records show, as reported by The Mercury News. He is incarcerated at Victorville, according to the outlet.
The case took an unusual turn when defense attorney Alanna Coopersmith said, citing court records, that the woman involved in a related state-court case had called Webster's mother to extort her, demanding $5,000 in exchange for not going to court. The defense claimed the woman was trying to shake people down, The Mercury News reported. Federal prosecutors, for their part, submitted Instagram images showing Webster with firearms, including photos of him shooting an AK-47 and another weapon at a Las Vegas shooting range, according to court records cited by the outlet. Prosecutors also said Webster had complained about younger gang members fraternizing with rivals, per the same report.
A Violent History Dating to 2013
Webster's criminal record traces back more than a decade. He was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to 10 years in prison for a 2013 West Oakland shooting that killed Eddiebo Rodriguez, according to sfpublicsafety.news. Federal prosecutors describe Rodriguez as a 21-year-old member of the Ghost Town gang who was killed in 2013, per The Mercury News, though Rodriguez's age was reported differently elsewhere: mercurynews.com identified him as 20 years old when he was fatally shot while driving a car, while CBS News reported he was 21. Police said the killing was gang-related, according to mercurynews.com's 2013 coverage, and Oakland police attributed shootings around that period to ongoing feuds and retaliatory violence between rival groups, the outlet reported separately.
Webster pleaded no contest to the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter under an agreement with the Alameda County District Attorney's Office, mercurynews.com reported in 2014. According to the defense, he was released from state prison in 2021 after earning early release for good behavior. It wasn't Webster's first brush with illegal firearms: in a 2012 case, police found a semiautomatic pistol with a 30-round clip in a car where Webster had been a passenger, according to eastbaytimes.com.
Defense Points to a Violent Upbringing
Webster's defense attorney has framed his history differently, arguing he was exposed to gun violence at a young age. According to the defense, Webster survived being shot twice, at ages 15 and 18. Coopersmith said Webster regrets possessing the gun and plans to secure a good job after leaving prison, per the court record cited by The Mercury News.
