Friday, April 5, 2024

Suspect Crashed Into Five Year Old and Her Father While They Were Waiting for a Bus

            WASHINGTON – Thaniyyah Veney, 33, of Washington, D.C., was sentenced today by the Honorable Jason Park to 96 months in prison for driving a car into a five-year-old girl who was waiting for a bus with her father in July 2023. The sentence was announced by U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves and Chief Pamela Smith, of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD).

            Veney pleaded guilty on December 19, 2023, to aggravated assault while armed with a deadly weapon in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. According to the government’s evidence, with which Veney agreed, on the afternoon of Saturday July 8, 2023, the five-year-old victim was standing with her father on the sidewalk in the 3200 block of Fourth Street, SE in Washington, D.C. At around 1:00 pm, Veney drove her car into the child and her father, and continued traveling until she struck the front steps of a home. When the vehicle stopped, Veney got out and walked to a nearby alley, leaving the child trapped beneath her car. When firefighters arrived, the child was still trapped under the vehicle. Firefighters had to use a ladder as a lever to enable them to raise the car enough to extract the child. The child was then airlifted to the hospital suffering life-threatening injuries.

            Witnesses pointed Veney out to police, who located and arrested Veney hours after the incident,.Veney’s breath was tested and found to contain an alcohol concentration above the per se threshold for intoxication.

            In addition to the prison term, Judge Park ordered Veney to serve five years of supervised release and pay $100 to the Superior Court’s Crime Victims Compensation Fund.

            This case was investigated by the Metropolitan Police Department. It was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Ronald Chester of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, with valuable assistance from Victim/Witness Advocate Jennifer Clark.