ANC2F to Make Statement on Drug Case

For the second time in six months, Roger Kemp, a community prosector at the US Attorney's office, has appeared before Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) 2F/Logan Circle. At ANC2F's regular monthly meeting, March 6, Kemp asked the ANC to write a community impact statement on a drug-dealing case to come up for sentencing in March.

ANC2F voted unanimously to author a community impact statement. Commissioner Peter Lallas (district 01) will write it. Lallas is the chair of ANC2F's Crime and Public Safety Committee.

Previous statement effective

Kemp previously asked the ANC to write a community impact statement at its meeting of November 6, 2013 -- see SALM blog post of November 8, 2013.

At the November 2013 meeting, Kemp asked ANC2F to weigh in with a community impact statement in the case of Jahlani Brown, who pled guilty to first-degree sexual abuse. In September 2013, Brown raped a woman who worked at an apartment building in Shaw.

Kemp reported he had received community impact statements on this case both from ANC2F and neighboring ANCs. The court noted the impact statements, Kemp said, and the judge "imposed a significant sentence."

"The sentence was higher than guidelines called for," Kemp said. "The victim was very happy."

"Community impact statements really do make a difference," said Assistant US Attorney Erin Lyons at the meeting.

U.S. vs Peoples, Long, and Green

Lyons and fellow Assistant US Attorney Kate Rakoczy asked the ANC to write a community impact statement on the cases of Antonio Peoples, Kevin Long, and Isaiah Green. They were arrested on drug-related and armed robbery charges as a result of a "long-term, in-depth drug investigation" in the summer of 2012. All three initially pleaded innocent but recently changed their pleas to guilty.

Peoples, Long, and Green were part of a "pretty large group of guys" who operated in the Lincoln Westmoreland Apartments, an affordable housing complex located on 7th and 8th Street NW between R and S Streets in Shaw. They will plead guilty to drug conspiracy charges, which may in this case carry stiffer charges because some of the activity took place in a designated drug-free zone near Grover Cleveland Elementary School (1825 8th Street NW). Peoples is also connected to a homicide case that is being tried separately.

Rakoczy urged all present not to think of drug dealing as a victimless crime.

"They're not victimless crimes because all of you, all of us, are victims," she said. 

ANC 6E/Shaw has already submitted a community impact statement in the case of Peoples and Green. It is available here.

You can view the DC Court records of Peoples, Long, and Green at court search page here. You can search by their full names, or enter the following case numbers into the "case number search" tool on the right:

Peoples: 2013 CF2 001589
Long: 2012 CF2 001592
Green: 2013 CF2 016141

There is a good explanation of community impact statements about half-way down this page from the US Attorney's Office.