SE District man sentenced to 6½ years in prison for shooting 14-year-old innocent bystander

U.S. Dept. of Justice, Dec 12, 2006

A 28-year-old District of Columbia man, Lionell Mario Pugh, has been sentenced to 78 months (6½ years) in prison for shooting a 14-year-old girl who was an innocent bystander, U.S. Attorney Jeffrey A. Taylor announced today.

Pugh received his sentence -- the maximum under the voluntary Superior Court guidelines -- in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia before the Honorable Hiram E. Puig-Lugo, who also ordered that the defendant be placed on three years of supervised release following his release from prison. On October 2, 2006, Pugh, of Langston Place, SE, Washington, D.C., pleaded guilty pre-indictment to one count of Assault with a Dangerous Weapon.

The government’s evidence in this case established that on May 31, 2006, at approximately 3:50 a.m., the defendant drove into the alley that runs from Quarles Street, NE, past 1536 Kenilworth Avenue, NE, Washington, D.C. (PSA 601). The defendant was driving a gray or silver Pontiac and another man was in the passenger seat. The defendant stopped the car in the alley near 1536 Kenilworth Avenue, directly behind two low concrete jersey walls that separated the alley and a row of parked cars from the residential courtyard. The driver’s side was closest to the jersey walls.

The defendant then reached out his driver’s side window and, with a gun in his right hand, fired approximately seven shots. His first shot struck the complaining witness, an innocent 14-year-old girl, who was sitting on one of the jersey walls. The bullet hit her left arm above the elbow, breaking her elbow. The bullet then exited out her left forearm and grazed the left side of her abdomen. She ran screaming while the defendant continued to fire the rest of the shots. Two other people sitting on the second jersey wall ducked behind it and managed to avoid injury. Bullets also hit two parked cars and a front window of a neighboring house. The defendant was heard to say, “F**k, I just shot a little girl.” He then drove off.