District Man Indicted on Enhanced Second-Degree Theft For Retail Theft

            WASHINGTON – This week, Miguel Demonis, 30, of Washington, D.C., was indicted by a grand jury in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia on one count of Felony Second-Degree Theft stemming from events occurring on February 1, 2024, U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves and Pamela Smith, Chief of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) announced.

            Demonis is to be arraigned on February 20, 2024, at a hearing before a Superior Court judge.

            According to the government’s evidence, on February 1, 2024, Demonis went into a CVS in Northwest Washington, D.C., took merchandise from the store shelves, and walked out of the store past all points of sale without paying.  Demonis was arrested minutes after walking out of the store by the Metropolitan Police Department.   

            Since September 1, 2023, including the aforementioned case, the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia has indicted 21 cases involving a felony second-degree theft charge based on a defendant’s two or more prior theft convictions, not from the same occasion.

            Demonis has two or more prior theft convictions, though not from the same occasion, and therefore is subject to enhanced penalties for his alleged theft, including a mandatory minimum sentence of one year in jail for the count of theft for which he is indicted.

            This case was investigated by the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.  It was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Rana Wahdan.

            An indictment is merely a formal charge that a defendant has committed a violation of criminal laws and every defendant is presumed innocent until, and unless, proven guilty.