A man sentenced to 27 months imprisonment for attacking Democratic Rep. Angie Craig in Washington, D.C., in an elevator in this year, was sentenced on Thursday.
Kendrid Hamlin was sentenced to prison by Chief Judge James E. Boasberg of the U.S. District Court. The Justice Department announced in a press release that Hamlin will also be subject to 36 months of supervision after his prison sentence.
Hamlin plead guilty to one charge of assault against a member Congress stemming the attack of February 9, in addition to 2 counts of assault upon a law enforcement official.
Requests for comment on Thursday were not immediately answered by a spokesperson for Hamlin or an attorney for Craig.
Craig stated in a victim’s statement that Hamlin followed her to the elevator at her apartment complex, and trapped her inside.
He grabbed my neck, and I was thrown into the wall. She wrote: “He punched me in my face.” The attack left her bruised with a cut on her lip.
Craig noted that her physical recovery took days but that her mental and emotional recovery is still ongoing. She also mentioned she received death threats and had to relocate because of media coverage about the attack.
Hamlin assaulted police officers when they tried to arrest him, according to court documents. Since then, Hamlin has been in custody.
Hamlin was sentenced to 27 months, which is less than the 39-months sought by prosecutors who cited Hamlin’s previous convictions for assaulting police officers in court documents.
Hamlin’s lawyers argued for a sentence of one year and one day in their defense sentencing memo. They said Hamlin was suffering from severe mental illness and “was off his medication, struggling acutely with his addiction” at the time of arrest.
A Hamlin attorney previously stated that he didn’t know Craig was a congresswoman, and Capitol Police said there were no indications the congresswoman had been targeted due to her position.
