WASHINGTON - Three District of Columbia men, Donnell Stewart, 21, Terrence Fox, 20, and Maurice Smith, 19, have been sentenced to prison terms of more than ten years each for the brazen December 20, 2007, armed robbery of the Good ‘Ole Reliable Liquor Store on Rhode Island Avenue, NE, Washington, D.C., U.S. Attorney Jeffrey A. Taylor announced today.

The defendants were found guilty of conspiracy to commit armed robbery, armed robbery, and other related theft and firearm offenses on July 8, 2008, after a week-long jury trial in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia before the Honorable Robert Richter. Yesterday, Judge Richter sentenced Stewart to approximately 15 years in prison. Fox and Smith were sentenced to 12 and 10 years in prison, respectively, on September 12, 2008.

According to the evidence presented at trial, Stewart, Fox, Smith, and a fourth accomplice who cooperated with the government’s investigation stormed into the Good ‘Ole Reliable Liquor Store together at approximately 7:00 p.m. on December 20, 2007. Wearing masks and gloves, and armed with three fully loaded semi-automatic handguns, they pointed their guns at the store clerks, ordered the clerks to open their registers and customers to hit the floor and empty their pockets. As one clerk ran to safety in an adjacent office, Stewart leapt over the register counter and chased him down, the clerk narrowly escaping to lock the door. Thankfully, the clerks and customers were unharmed as the defendants escaped from the store with only a few hundred dollars.

As the four robbers ran out of the store into a minivan that they had stolen hours beforehand to use in the robbery, Metropolitan Police Department Detectives Jamell Stallings and William White happened upon the scene in an unmarked police car. Immediately recognizing the situation, Detectives Stallings and White pursued the defendants as they fled from the store. Marked police units joined in the pursuit, during which the defendants recklessly drove halfway across the city, striking and injuring one motorist on North Capitol Street before eventually crashing into a tow truck in the 200 block of W Street, NW, in the city’s Ledroit Park neighborhood. Smith, Fox, and the cooperating accomplice were immediately apprehended, while Stewart, the driver, who had an outstanding parole warrant at the time, ran from the crash and was apprehended minutes later on the campus of Howard University Hospital.

Masks, gloves, and three fully loaded semi-automatic handguns were found in the van and at the scene of the crash.

In announcing the sentences, U.S. Attorney Taylor commended MPD Detectives Stallings and White, whose quick reaction helped to apprehend the defendants, the store clerks at the Good ‘Ole Reliable Liquor Store, who courageously testified at trial, and MPD Mobile Crime technicians James and John Holder, who managed the evidence at trial and impressively diagramed the crime scene. He also praised the work of Paralegal Antoinette Sakamsa, the employees of the U.S. Attorney’s Office Litigation Technology Support Section, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Keith Becker, who prosecuted the case.