WASHINGTON - Saleem Elamin, also known as Tariq El-Amin, was sentenced today to 10 years in prison for an armed robbery of a woman he attacked and cut with a knife at a Northwest Washington laundromat, U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. announced.
Elamin, 33, of Washington, D.C., was found guilty by a jury in September 2014, following a trial in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. At sentencing, the Honorable William M. Jackson called the defendant’s violence in cutting the victim with the knife “gratuitous." Following completion of his prison term, Elamin will be placed on five years of supervised release.
According to the government’s evidence, on May 6, 2014, at about 2:30 p.m., Elamin walked into a laundromat in the 1200 block of Underwood Street NW. The victim, a customer, was sitting and waiting for her clothes to finish washing. Elamin had a box-cutter knife concealed in the sleeve of his jacket. Without saying anything, he cut the victim’s arm, grabbed her purse off her lap, and ran out. A witness followed him out of the laundromat, and chased him as he fled into a nearby alley.
Officers with the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) later found Elamin in a stairwell off the alley, with the knife and purse at his feet. The victim and eyewitness identified him at the scene. Elamin also gave a statement to police in which he admitted the crime.
In announcing the sentence, U.S. Attorney Machen commended the work of those who investigated the case for the Metropolitan Police Department. He also acknowledged the efforts of those who worked on the case from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, including Victim/Witness Advocate Melissa Milam; Paralegal Specialists Nicole McGhee and Wanda Trice, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher M. Bruckmann, of the Felony Major Crimes Trial Section, who investigated and prosecuted the matter.
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Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
