WASHINGTON – Robert Lewis, 21, of Washington, D.C., pled guilty today to burglary and robbery charges stemming from separate incidents in Northwest Washington, U.S. Attorney Channing D. Phillips announced.
Lewis pled guilty in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia to second-degree burglary, robbery, and contempt. The plea, which is contingent upon the Court’s approval, calls for an agreed-upon sentence of five years in prison. The Honorable Kimberley S. Knowles set a hearing for June 2, 2017 to determine whether the plea and sentence will be accepted.
The guilty plea comes less than a week after Lewis was found guilty by a jury in another case of second-degree burglary and second-degree theft, with a finding that the crimes were committed while Lewis was on pretrial release. He is to be sentenced in that case on June 2, 2017, by the Honorable Juliet McKenna. Under the Court’s voluntary sentencing guidelines, he could face an additional three to five years in prison on those charges.
In today’s guilty plea, Lewis admitted to carrying out a burglary during the daytime hours of Oct. 16, 2015 in the 700 block of Taylor Street NW. A laptop and several other items were stolen from that home. The laptop was found about six weeks later when law enforcement executed a search at Lewis’s apartment in Northeast Washington.
Lewis also admitted taking part in an armed robbery that took place at about 2:45 p.m. on June 24, 2016, in the 600 block of Buchanan Street NW. A co-defendant, Donathan Taylor, 19, pled guilty on March 3, 2017, to an armed robbery charge in the robbery, and is to be sentenced on May 19, 2017. Finally, Lewis pled guilty to a contempt charge for leaving a halfway house, where he was being held while awaiting trial, without authorization on June 22, 2016.
The verdict in the case last week followed a trial in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia on charges stemming from a burglary on April 9, 2015 at a home in the unit block of Gallatin Street NW, in which a laptop was taken. At the time of the burglary, Lewis was on pretrial release in another case. Fingerprint evidence linked him to the crime.
In announcing the plea and verdict, U.S. Attorney Phillips commended the work of those who investigated the cases from the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD). He also expressed appreciation for the assistance provided by the Latent Fingerprint Unit of the Forensic Science Laboratory of the District of Columbia Department of Forensic Sciences. Finally, he acknowledged the efforts of those who worked on the cases from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, including Assistant U.S. Attorneys Michael J. Romano, Alysa Kociuruba, and Kamil E. Shields, who prosecuted the matters leading to today’s guilty pleas, and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kociuruba and C.B. Buente, who prosecuted the matter that led to the verdict last week.