WASHINGTON - Antoine Dyson, 42, of Washington, D.C., has been sentenced to a four-year prison term on charges stemming from a Capitol Hill robbery and a theft from an automobile in a downtown parking lot, U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. announced today.
Dyson pled guilty in May 2013, in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, to one count each of robbery and first-degree theft. He was sentenced on July 24, 2013 by the Honorable Robert I. Richter. Upon completion of his prison term, Dyson will be placed on three years of supervised release.
According to the government’s evidence, on July 13, 2012 at about 4:10 p.m., Dyson was observed on surveillance video entering the Grand Hyatt hotel parking garage in the 1000 block of G Street NW, carrying a single black briefcase. He went to the corner of the garage and returned several minutes later carrying a second black briefcase. Shortly thereafter, the victim reported that the rear passenger window of his 2005 Lexus sports utility vehicle had been shattered, and that a black briefcase containing an Apple iPad2 tablet computer, an iPod Touch portable music player, and a Nikon Coolpix digital camera, among other items, was missing. The victim viewed the surveillance video and confirmed that the second black briefcase carried by Dyson was the briefcase that had been stolen from his vehicle.
Months later, on Nov. 27, 2012, at about 8:30 p.m., Dyson entered the Matchbox restaurant in the 500 block of 8th Street SE, and was observed by an eyewitness removing a second victim’s wallet from her purse, which was hanging from a hook at the restaurant’s bar. The eyewitness chased Dyson out of the restaurant and confronted him about the robbery. Dyson then fled in a sports utility vehicle and was stopped several blocks away by officers of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD). The victim’s wallet was recovered near where Dyson’s vehicle had been stopped and the eyewitness positively identified Dyson as the perpetrator.
Dyson also was suspected in approximately 72 break-ins of automobiles located in parking garages throughout downtown Washington from January 2011 to November 2012. The break-ins were primarily focused at the Grand Hyatt and Gallery Place parking garages. Dyson often shattered windows to gain access to automobiles, before fleeing with electronics or other valuables contained within the vehicles. As a result of the government’s investigation, these cases were successfully closed, and the government agreed not to bring any charges in exchange for Dyson’s plea of guilty to robbery and first-degree theft in May.
In announcing the sentence, U.S. Attorney Machen commended the work of those who investigated the case for the MPD. He also acknowledged the efforts of those who worked on the case from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, including Paralegal Specialists Donville Drummond and Tamaya Reid, Investigative Analyst William Hammon, and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Scott Ray and Clare Pozos. Finally, he thanked Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Spence, of the Felony Major Crimes Section, who prosecuted the matter.
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Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
