EX-AAU coach gets federal prison
Pleads guilty to drug charge amid investigation into alleged sexual assault of teen girls
Danny Lawhorn Jr., a former coach with the Bria Holmes Elite AAU basketball program, has been sentenced to just over a year in federal prison after pleading guilty to being found with narcotics on two separate occasions while authorities were investigating allegations he sexually assaulted teenage girls.
Lawhorn faced sentencing last
Friday in federal court in Hartford where Judge Omar A. Williams sentenced him to 12 months and a day in prison followed by three years of supervised release, federal court documents indicate.
The sentencing came after Lawhorn, who formerly played professional basketball overseas, waived indictment in September and pleaded guilty to one count of possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance, specifically fentanyl, according to court documents. In exchange for the plea, prosecutors elected not to pursue one count of enticement of a minor to engage in criminal sexual activity, citing the statelevel charges Lawhorn still faces related to those allegations.
In his sentencing memorandum, Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut Neeraj N. Patel asked for Lawhorn to be sentenced to a year in prison.
Lawhorn’s attorney, Jon
Schoenhorn, asked that his client be sentenced to supervised release in lieu of additional prison time and receive credit for time he was held on bond for a little over six months, federal court papers indicate.
According to Patel’s memorandum, authorities on June 13, 2021, were investigating a sexual assault complaint from a 17-yearold girl who was living with Lawhorn at the time when investigators detained Lawhorn for an interview. While patting him down, police found a clear knotted baggie with four white rocklike substances that were each in a smaller baggies, Patel wrote.
Lab tests later confirmed the substance to be cocaine, which weighed about 11.46 grams, court papers said. In his plea agreement with federal prosecutors, Lawhorn admitted that he intended to distribute the drugs.
According to Patel’s memorandum, Lawhorn later in the day was arrested on statelevel charges of possession of a controlled substance and second-degree sexual assault. He was subsequently released on bond.
On Oct. 5, 2021, Lawhorn was arrested again on statelevel charges tied to allegations of sexual assault involving another 17-year-old girl who played basketball in the Bria Holmes Elite basketball program, federal court documents said. Holmes, a WNBA player, has a child with Lawhorn.
During that arrest, authorities saw Lawhorn and his child, who was 3 at the time, leave his mother’s apartment complex and approach a vehicle, Patel wrote. Once his daughter was in the vehicle, authorities confronted Lawhorn, who tried to flee and ran toward the apartment complex, leaving his daughter behind, according to Patel’s memorandum.
Lawhorn tried to get into the complex, but the door was locked. He ignored commands by law enforcement to stop and tried to climb over a nearby fence, where authorities apprehended him, Patel wrote. As he was being taken into custody, several wax paper sleeves fell out of Lawhorn’s pockets, according to the memorandum.
The sleeves contained a white powder substance that was later tested in a lab and confirmed to be fentanyl, which weighed about 5.09 grams. According to Patel’s memorandum, Lawhorn admitted that he had intended to sell the 301 sleeves of fentanyl he had on him during the arrest.
On Oct. 19, 2021, Lawhorn was arrested on a federal criminal complaint in connection with the narcotics and the enticement of a minor charge that would ultimately be dropped.
Prosecutors noted that Lawhorn contests the sexual assault allegations referenced in the plea agreement and had asked Williams not to consider them in the sentence he imposed.
In his memorandum asking that his client avoid additional prison time, Schoenhorn said Lawhorn played professional basketball in El Salvador, the Czech Republic, Macedonia, Ukraine and Albania between 2015 and 2018. Following his stint overseas, Lawhorn returned to Hartford for the birth of his daughter, his first child, Schoenhorn wrote.
According to Schoenhorn, plans to return to playing basketball overseas were put on hold by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Danny struggled during this time as he raised his daughter, knowing that he was not pulling his weight in supporting his family financially,” Schoenhorn wrote in his memorandum. “This is when Danny turned to selling. Danny knew that narcotic sales were an easy way to make ‘fast cash,’ and he succumbed to the pressure he was putting on himself to support his family.”
Schoenhorn also submitted multiple letters from friends and family of Lawhorn in his request for a sentence that did not involve additional prison time. One letter was authored by a woman only identified in federal court documents as “Danny’s fiancée.”
“She states that Danny is a great father to his daughter, and the son they share together,” Schoenhorn wrote. “She hopes he can continue to be at home with his family, raising his children and working toward new career goals.”
Lawhorn remains free from custody following his sentencing and has been ordered by Williams to report to federal prison on April 9.
State-level sexual assault charges remain pending against Lawhorn. He has been accused of using his position as a coach and advocate to coerce sex acts over several years from three teenage members of the Bria Holmes’ AAU girls basketball program. It is a crime under state law for a coach to use his position of authority to coerce women under age 18.
Three cases involving more than half a dozen sexual assault charges against Lawhorn are pending in Hartford Superior Court. Those matters have been on the state’s trial list since November 2022, records show.