Friday, December 20, 2024

WASHINGTON – Amard Jefferson, 25, of Ft. Washington, MD, was found guilty by a Superior Court jury of one count of second-degree murder while armed, for the August 2021 murder of 20-year-old Kendall Brown, announced U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves and Chief Pamela Smith of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD). Jefferson was also convicted of obstruction of justice for trying to convince his girlfriend to tell authorities that she killed Kendall Brown – not him.

            Superior Court Judge Rainey Brandt scheduled sentencing for February 14, 2025. Jefferson faces a statutory maximum sentence of 60 years in prison.

            According to the government’s evidence, at approximately 4:28 p.m., on August 7, 2021, in the 3000 block of Nelson Place, Southeast, Ms. Brown and two others went to the apartment of Jefferson’s girlfriend to retrieve personal items that one of them left behind after moving out of the apartment. While there, a verbal argument occurred. The defendant, who was not initially involved in the verbal argument, escalated the argument by introducing and reaching for his firearm and threatening the women that he was going to “call his men.” Shortly thereafter, and without cause or justification, the defendant shot Ms. Brown. After locking the decedent into the apartment, the defendant fled with his girlfriend and a minor child. As he fled the crime scene, he stashed the murder weapon -- a black 9mm ghost gun – in a drainpipe a few blocks away.. Defendant Jefferson continued his efforts to prevent legal accountability a few days after his arrest when he attempted, through text messages and phone calls from the D.C. Department of Corrections, to convince his girlfriend to affirmatively and falsely take blame for the murder. 

            This case was investigated by the Metropolitan Police Department’s Homicide Branch, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Emily Kubo and Stephanie Dinan.