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The sentence was 12 months less than that requested by prosecutors, but the man will also serve 36 months of supervised release.
The man who attacked lesbian U.S. Rep. Angie Craig of Minnesota in her apartment building in February has been sentenced to 27 months in prison, 12 months less than the sentence requested by Justice Department prosecutor Alexander Schneider.
Kendrid Khalil Hamlin, also known as Kendrick Hamlin and Hamlin Khalil Hamlin, pleaded guilty June 1 to attacking Craig and two Washington, D.C., police officers. Craig, a Democrat from Minnesota, had taken the elevator down to the lobby of her D.C. apartment house to get coffee when she encountered Hamlin the morning of February 9. He was acting somewhat strangely, but Craig greeted him in a friendly manner.
Intending to return to her unit, Craig entered the elevator, but Hamlin followed her in and insisted she take him to her apartment. She told him to leave and pushed him, and then he hit her. He grabbed her around the neck, trapping her in the elevator, but she managed to escape by splashing hot coffee on him, which caused him to let go. He ran away but was arrested that evening. He pleaded guilty to one count of assault on a member of Congress and two counts of assault on the arresting officers.
Prosecutors from the Justice Department had asked that Hamlin be sentenced to 39 months in prison, as they said he had an “extraordinary criminal history,” with multiple convictions of robbery, attempted robbery, and assaulting police officers, The Washington Post reports. His defense team asked for a sentence of a year and one day. They said he suffered from mental illness, including schizophrenia, had intellectual disabilities, had been assaulted while in prison for previous offenses, and had been experiencing homelessness.
Chief U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg came down in the middle, with a 21-month sentence for the assault on Craig and three months each for the assaults on the police. In sentencing Hamlin last Thursday, Boasberg said the defendant had a “very hard upbringing … compounded by very serious, unaddressed mental health” issues and drug use, according to the Post. But the judge also cited Hamlin’s history “of violent behavior and assaultive behavior,” and added, “I want to help you get better. I also have to protect the community.” The sentence will be followed by 36 months of supervised release.
Boasberg recommended that Hamlin serve his sentence in a medical facility within the Federal Bureau of Prisons and his supervision time in a residential treatment program.
Craig, who is in her third term in the U.S. House, had submitted a victim impact statement in which she said Hamlin probably did not know she was a member of Congress. She “was simply a woman followed into an elevator by a man and assaulted there,” she said. She suffered a cut lip and bruises, and she was sore for several days. “While my physical recovery was days, my mental and emotional recovery has taken much longer and is ongoing,” she added.
“Craig wrote that a news outlet broadcast a police report with her building address, forcing her to move, and that after commentary by media personalities repeated Republican claims that one of her aides supported defunding the police, “I received a flurry of additional targeted physical violence and death threats to myself and my staff,’” the Post reports. Craig, the first lesbian mother in Congress, said her wife and four sons are also concerned for their safety. She has taken self-defense training.
She said she hopes Hamlin gets the help he needs, but until he receives that, he will pose a threat to others. He issued an apology to Craig and the officers.
Hamlin’s lawyers, Gene Ohm and Katie D’Adamo Guevara, issued a statement saying, “While we are disappointed in the length of the prison sentence, we are hopeful that he will finally get the mental health treatment he has been seeking and desperately needs upon release.” They also called for an end to “the ineffective and deeply harmful practice of incarceration as a substitute” for mental health care.
