Matthew M. Graves U.S. Attorney | U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia
Cristian Josue Arteaga, a 35-year-old formerly from Hyattsville, Maryland, has been indicted by a grand jury in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. He faces multiple counts of first-degree sexual abuse while armed with aggravating circumstances. These charges stem from an incident on January 22, 2012, involving the armed rape of a victim in Northeast Washington D.C., as announced by U.S. Attorney Edward R. Martin Jr. and Chief Pamela Smith of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD).
Arteaga is scheduled to be arraigned before Judge Jason Park. If found guilty, he could face life imprisonment without the possibility of release and lifetime sex offender registration.
The government’s evidence suggests that on January 22, 2012, at around 2:30 a.m., the victim was walking home from the Ft. Totten Metro station after work when Arteaga approached her and asked for the time. After she provided it using her phone, Arteaga allegedly brandished a handgun and demanded money along with making a sexual demand while pointing the gun at her face. The victim was then forced into a carport where she was raped multiple times at gunpoint. Following this assault, Arteaga threatened her not to report it to police under threat of death before fleeing.
Due to these threats, the victim waited until the next morning to report the crime to police and subsequently obtained a rape kit while crime scene technicians processed evidence. In 2012, DNA testing revealed an unknown male profile which was entered into CODIS but initially yielded no matches.
On December 19, 2023, however, Texas authorities identified a match between this DNA profile and that of Cristian Josue Arteaga through CODIS. Detectives traveled to Texas to collect a known DNA sample from Arteaga for further comparison against evidence from the case tested in 2012; results strongly supported inclusion of both his and the victim’s DNA profiles.
Arteaga has been held since his arrest and transferred to Washington D.C. in January 2025 for trial proceedings.
The MPD is conducting investigations into this case which will be prosecuted by U.S Attorney’s Office for District Columbia.
An indictment represents merely an allegation; all defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt within court proceedings.
