A California man who local police say went on a shopping spree with credit cards stolen from University freshmen and who tried to pass himself off as a Duck football player in Eugene so he could “get play” with women was arrested in Los Angeles on burglary charges last week, according to Eugene and L.A. police.
LaPaul Marquis Lane, 19, stole debit cards from two women and a checkbook from another at Bean Complex in February and then used them to buy tattoos and athletic apparel and write himself a check for $300, said Eugene Police Department Officer Chris White, who is leading the investigation into the thefts.
All told, nearly $2,500 was stolen, some of the theft victims and White said.
Lane, who is not a student at the University, had been passing himself off as a freshman fullback on a scholarship to play for the Duck football team.
Lane was arrested on March 22 by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department and is now being held at a jail in L.A. on a $296,000 bail for four counts of burglary, one count of grand theft with a firearm and one count of forgery involving a credit card.
Lane’s recently updated Myspace.com profile states that he is “rocking the football” at the University, while another profile of his, updated in November, says “I now play for southwest college, in hopes to transfer to oregon university.”
The admissions office at Los Angeles Southwest College confirmed that Lane is currently studying law at the two-year college. He started attending in winter 2005.
Former Duck wide receiver Matt Bramow, a freshman whom Lane stayed with several times at his Ducks Village apartment, told White that he helped propagate the belief that Lane was a football player so he could “get play” with women, White said.
Bramow, who was removed from the team in March for violating team rules, said on Sunday that Lane slept at his apartment for less than a week, but that the two didn’t hang out often.
Bramow said he didn’t care when Lane told people he played for the Ducks team, and that “I’m not going to baby-sit him if I’m there when it happened.”
Later in the interview, Bramow denied going along with it, saying “I’d always make fun of Paul for saying that – in front of people, too.”
White is seeking a warrant for Lane’s arrest based on evidence including a video of Lane buying a pre-paid cell phone and calling card at Wal-Mart with a stolen card, White said. Lane won’t be extradited to Oregon because the states don’t have extradition agreements and the charges down there are more serious than those here, White said. White still wants to have a warrant in case Lane returns to Oregon, he said.
Lane, who was temporarily living in Barnhart Hall with Ducks freshman tight end Ed Dickson, had been kicked off campus during fall term by Department of Public Safety officers and given a trespass order forbidding him from coming onto campus, White said. On Oct. 13, 2005, Eugene police cited him for violating that order at the Hamilton Complex, White said.
Lane and Dickson are both from Bellflower, Calif., in the Los Angeles area. White said Lane stole a debit card and cash from a woman’s purse at a house party and then used the card to make purchases at the 7-Eleven on the corner of East Broadway and Patterson Street. Lane then attempted to buy about $600 worth of athletic shoes from www.foot-factory.com, giving Dickson’s name and address for mailing purposes, White said. The company received notice that the card was stolen and canceled the shipment, he said.
University freshman Liz Jackson said her debit card and an iPod worth about $300 were both stolen from her room in Bean Complex. The card was charged for about $300 worth of items at Champs Sports, she said.
Freshman Katie Streinz said she canceled her card on Feb. 23 after noticing it was missing and discovered the card had accumulated $966 in charges, counting overdraft charges.
Lane was dating a woman in the hall, the Bean Complex victims said.
Freshman Dawn Helzer, a copy chief at the Emerald, said Lane stole her checkbook when he came into her room uninvited, acted strange and refused to leave after several requests. A U.S. Bank copy of her check showed that a check was written to “LaPaul Lane,” dated Feb. 16 and deposited at Oregon Community Credit Union.
Lane used a stolen credit card to purchase two tattoos at Spiritual Tree Tattoos, including a tattoo of a black Jesus with the word “Bellflower” below it, White said. The artist who created the tattoo, who goes by the name Scott Gyatso for his independent contracting tattoo business at Spiritual Tree Tattoos, said Lane paid about $200 for the Jesus tattoo.
“Everything out of his mouth was UO, UO. He was straight football. Said he was redshirted,” Gyatso said. “Every time he came in here he had new shoes or new clothes.”
Lane told Gyatso he paid for the items and the University reimbursed him for them, Gyatso said. Lane always came and went by taxi, and he was always alone, Gyatso said.
Nick Porter, from Spiritual Tree Tattoo, said Lane paid with a stolen card after Porter gave him an estimate of $50 for a star tattoo on his forearm. Lane later requested more stars, totaling another $100 in work. After getting the tattoos, Lane gave Porter only a $5 tip and left without paying for the additional work, Porter said.
Porter said Lane once came in with Nike apparel, including a pair of expensive Nike hightops, and told him that he ran into Nike co-founder and philanthropist Phil Knight at The Nike Store and after Knight recognized him as a Ducks player, he gave him free items.
In December, Lane, a member of the Oak Block gang, was convicted of grand theft for stealing a Nextel flip phone with a camera worth about $400 from a friend who works at a Jack in the Box in Bellflower, according to an L.A. Sheriff’s Department police report and court records.
On one of his Myspace.com profiles, Lane wrote that his interests are “Ofcourse FOOTBALL! my education, and staying out of trouble. And most of all my girl.”
“I love enjoying life with my friends, and my family. i care very much abou tthe people around me,” he wrote on the profile. “One day i hope day i hope to have the opportunity to go to college and major in law.”
Bramow said that while he didn’t know Lane that well, Lane was a “cool guy, he just has too many problems and issues.”
“He’s just got problems,” he said. “Somebody needs to just help him out.”

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