Saskatoon Uber driver convicted of soliciting sex from teen customers

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A Saskatoon judge says she doesn’t believe that a now-suspended Uber driver was “joking around” when he asked a 14-year-old girl and 19-year-old woman, during separate rides, how much money they would accept for sex acts.

The Crown proved that Ryan Christopher Santos “intended for those words to purchase sex,” Judge Lisa Watson concluded.

“He steered the conversation in a sexual direction, and he offered specific sums of money,” she said when giving her decision last month after Santos’s provincial court trial.

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Watson convicted him of obtaining sexual services for consideration (soliciting sex), obtaining sexual services for consideration from a minor, and invitation to sexual touching.

Santos, 36, remains in custody until his sentencing hearing, which is scheduled for June 16.

The offences 

A 16-year-old girl, who was 14 at the time, testified that her boyfriend arranged for an Uber to pick her up in the city’s Kensington neighbourhood on July 21, 2023.

She said she got inside a red Tesla and told the driver that she was going to visit her boyfriend. Santos asked how long they’d been dating, and if he was her “first,” she said.

She testified that she said he wasn’t her first boyfriend, to which Santos replied “Is he your first body, are you a virgin?”

The girl said she answered “no” and tried to avoid his questions.

“She felt scared throughout the drive after the sexualized questions began,” Watson said.

Santos then asked if she would give him oral sex. She said no. He offered her $100, $200, then $1,000, and “insisted that he could give her stuff that she might want,” Watson said when summarizing the girl’s testimony.

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The girl testified she eventually said he would have to buy her Jordan Dior shoes in an attempt to convey that it would never happen.

Santos told her he could get her the shoes as he pulled up to her boyfriend’s house, the girl told court.

Both the girl and her now ex-boyfriend testified that she made a brief recording while in the car. The ex-boyfriend said he got a voice message from the girl of a man’s voice asking “How much would it have to be?” and then laughing at the girl’s response.

He testified that the girl sent him text messages from the car and was shaking when she arrived at his house.

A 19-year-old woman testified that Santos drove her from a bar to her Evergreen neighbourhood home the evening of Oct. 6, 2023. She said she had three drinks, and was sober enough to feel comfortable getting into an Uber alone.

The woman said they started chatting about jobs, and Santos asked if she’d ever thought about being an escort, to which she said no. He then asked her how many people she’d slept with. She said she doesn’t remember her response.

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Watson said Santos asked the woman how much money she would accept for sex. The woman said $1,000 because she thought it was an unrealistic amount.

She said Santos opened the middle console and pulled out cash, saying he had $500 and they could pull over.

“At some point he made a comment that he bet she’d never had sex in a Tesla before,” Watson said.

The woman testified that she told Santos she had a boyfriend, but he continued to ask her for other sex acts before offering $50 to see her breasts.

During the conversation, she took a screen shot of Santos’s licence plate from the Uber app and sent it to her boyfriend and a friend.

“She testified that she was a 19-year-old girl, alone in a vehicle, with a man who was much older than her. She was also in a Tesla — a vehicle she was not familiar with — and she did not know how to get out,” Watson said.

“The route that they drove to her house included an area where there were no houses. (She) formulated a plan to run if he did pull over.”

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The woman said Santos asked “You’re not going to report me, are you?” when he dropped her off. She said he offered her money to stay quiet, but she declined.

She said she immediately called her mom to come get her because she didn’t feel safe. She then called police.

The defence

Santos denied that he was propositioning either teen for sex. Instead, he said he was telling them a joke that he told all the time, which consisted of asking how much money they would accept for a sex act.

He said he told both the complainants that they were supposed to say “nothing,” because that was “the point of the joke.”

His lawyer, Landon Skvairson, argued that while the discussion was inappropriate, Santos was “simply joking.” Santos testified that both complainants were “laughing and joking around” and never said they were uncomfortable.

He testified that he is Filipino and “a lot of Filipino jokes are sexual and probably not appropriate in Canadian culture.”

Court heard Santos moved to Saskatoon in 2019 and was working as a building property manager before signing up to become an Uber driver to make extra cash, something he’d previously done while working in other provinces.

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He admitted that Uber’s guidelines include a section about inappropriate conduct and sexual harassment. He said he skimmed the refresher course when he reinstated his account in 2023.

“He agreed that having sexual conversations with passengers is not appropriate, and he noted that the policy was not in his mind when he was driving,” Watson said.

Santos denied knowing the first complainant’s age until she filed a sexual harassment complaint with Uber shortly after. He said he asked Uber how a 14-year-old could be in his car when Uber requires passengers to be 18 years old.

His account was reinstated, court heard. An Uber spokesperson confirmed Santos has been suspended, but did not say when it happened.

The decision 

Crown prosecutor Leslie Dunning told court that a transaction doesn’t need to happen in order for a solicitation offence to be proven.

“Communication for the purpose of obtaining sexual services for payment is the offence,” she said.

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Watson said she found Santos’s testimony to be “self-serving” and “internally inconsistent.”

“What I do not understand on his evidence is why he would remember each of these trips with such detail if this was a common joke that he would make to people.

“It makes even less sense that he would have his employment threatened, with suspension in the summer of 2023 as a result of making this joke, only to then tell the same, inappropriate joke to another young, solo woman just months later.”

Watson entered a conditional stay of proceedings on the solicitation charge of a minor because of its similarity to the sexual touching offence. The legal principle ensures that people aren’t convicted of multiple offences arising from the same “act.”

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