Defendant Was on Supervised Release for Earlier Armed Robberies
WASHINGTON - Marcquise Smith, 27, of Washington D.C., was sentenced today to a prison term of four and a half years for robbing a man of his sport utility vehicle last summer, U.S. Attorney Jessie K. Liu announced.
Smith pled guilty to a robbery charge in August 2017 in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. He was sentenced by the Honorable Juliet McKenna. Upon completion of his prison term, Smith will be placed on three years of supervised release.
According to a factual proffer submitted at the time of the plea hearing, on June 27, 2017, at approximately 11:25 p.m., Smith approached two men after they had just parked a black Nissan Pathfinder in the unit block of P Street NE. While pretending that he was armed, Smith demanded that the driver of the SUV give him everything that he had, including his car keys. The victim gave his car keys to Smith, who then unlocked the vehicle and rode off.
The victims provided a description of the suspect, including that he was wearing jeans and a black belt with a silver buckle, and that he covered the majority of his face with a yellow T-shirt. Law enforcement broadcast a lookout for the stolen black Nissan Pathfinder with Tennessee tags. Within minutes, officers with the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) observed the black Nissan Pathfinder heading eastbound in the 1300 block of New York Avenue NE. The officers attempted a traffic stop of the vehicle, but Smith refused to listen to the officers’ commands and fled southbound on West Virginia Avenue NE.
The officers pursued the black Nissan Pathfinder with full emergency equipment activated, until Smith crashed the stolen vehicle at 19th Street and Maryland Avenue NE. Smith fled on foot, but officers quickly located him inside an apartment building. At the time he was arrested, Smith was wearing blue jeans, a brown belt with a golden buckle, red tennis shoes and was shirtless. Law enforcement subsequently located an orange T-shirt in the road that Smith drove on during his flight from the police, and the victim who handed Smith his car keys identified him as the assailant. Smith has been in custody since his arrest.
In 2008, Smith committed a series of robberies in the District of Columbia and he later pled guilty to armed robbery and other offenses. He was sentenced in October 2011 to more than five years of incarceration, and was eventually placed on supervised release on May 12, 2017. Within six weeks of his release back into the community, Smith committed the robbery.
In announcing the sentence, U.S. Attorney Liu commended the work of those who investigated the case from the Metropolitan Police Department. She also expressed appreciation for the efforts of Assistant U.S. Attorney Vivien Cockburn, who prosecuted the matter.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
