District Man Sentenced to 17 Years for Shooting a Man in Northeast Washington

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, August 22, 2023

Victim Shot Multiple Times on Sidewalk in Broad Daylight

            WASHINGTON – Stefen Farmer, 52, of Washington, D.C., was sentenced today to 17 years in prison for the February 2021 shooting of a man on a sidewalk in Northeast Washington D.C., announced U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves and Acting Chief Pamela A. Smith, of the Metropolitan Police Department.

            On March 7, 2023, following a two-week trial in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, Farmer was found guilty of aggravated assault while armed, assault with a dangerous weapon, assault with significant bodily injury, three counts of possession of a firearm during a crime of violence, unlawful possession of a firearm, carrying a pistol without a license, and lesser included firearms offenses.

            The Honorable Anthony Epstein sentenced Farmer to 144 months for aggravated assault while armed and 60 months for possession of a firearm during a crime of violence, with those sentences to run consecutively, for a total of 17 years incarceration. 

            According to the government’s evidence, around 6 p.m. on February 25, 2021, the defendant was sitting in the driver’s seat of a small black SUV parked on the 4400 block of Gault Place when the victim - a longtime friend of the defendant’s - walked up to the car window and started a conversation. Farmer repeatedly asked the victim for money but the victim refused. Farmer then retrieved a gun, stepped out of the car, and shot at the victim from pointblank range three times, as the victim was walking away. Two bullets hit the victim while he was trying to escape the gunfire and he sustained injuries to his hand and leg. Farmer stopped shooting only because a mutual friend of both men pushed him back while he was firing the gun. Three days after the shooting, Farmer sent the victim a Facebook message apologizing “for the inconvenience.” 

            In announcing the sentence, U.S. Attorney Graves and Acting Chief Smith commended the officers and detectives of the Metropolitan Police Department for their work on the case. They also thanked Assistant U.S. Attorneys Alec Levy and Omeed A. Assefi who prosecuted the case.