Washington, D.C. – A 28-year-old Northwest District of Columbia woman, Damika Covington, was sentenced Monday in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia by the Honorable Hiram Puig-Lugo to 12 years in prison, with 9 years suspended, and eight years of supervised release and probation for charges related to her serial theft and forgery of checks totaling $42,800 from July through October 2007, U.S. Attorney Jeffrey A. Taylor announced.

The defendant will also have to pay restitution for the $42,800 stolen. On June 17, 2008, Covington, of the 7400 block of 13th Street NW, Washington, D.C., entered a guilty plea to First Degree Theft from a Senior Citizen in connection with her systematic scheme of defrauding an 88-year old woman.

According to the government’s evidence, beginning in July 2007, Covington began a systematic pattern of defrauding the victim, then her neighbor, following the death of the victim’s husband in June 2007. Covington befriended the woman, assisting her with household chores, while at the same time stealing checks, forging them to herself, and depositing them in a bank account she established and used almost exclusively for this scheme. Covington stole, forged and cashed a total of eight (8) checks, totaling $42,800 between July and October 2007. Bank records, videos, and the forged checks themselves revealed Covington’s scheme, to which she ultimately confessed.

In announcing the sentence, U.S. Attorney Taylor commended lead Metropolitan Police Department Detective Donita Giles, who did an outstanding job investigating the offense and obtaining a confession from the defendant, and Detectives Nathaniel Britt and Matthew Davis, and Officers John Kelsey and Phillipe Moore, who assisted with the investigation. He also praised the work of Paralegal Kalisha Johnson-Clark. Finally, U.S. Attorney Taylor expressed his appreciation to Assistant U.S. Attorneys Stephanie Miller, who investigated and indicted the case, and Jonathan Hooks, who handled the matter from indictment to sentencing.