District Man Pleads Guilty to Attacking Woman At Southeast Washington Park

          WASHINGTON - Tayshawn Sellers, 18, of Washington, D.C., pled guilty today to a charge of assault with intent to kill while armed for attacking a woman earlier this year at a Southeast Washington park, U.S. Attorney Channing D. Phillips announced.

            Sellers pled guilty in the Superior Court for the District of Columbia. The charge carries a statutory maximum of 30 years in prison. Under the court’s voluntary sentencing guidelines, he could face a range of 7 ½ to 15 years in prison; however, the court could impose a sentence outside of that range if it finds a substantial and compelling aggravating or mitigating factor. The Honorable Michael Ryan scheduled sentencing for Nov. 30, 2016.

            According to the government’s evidence, on the evening of April 21, 2016, Sellers and his 18-year-old cousin went with the victim to a wooded area behind the baseball field in Benning Park, in the 5100 block of Southern Ave SE. During their encounter with the victim, Sellers and his cousin started to kick, punch, and hit her all over her body. They left her lying naked from the waist down, badly injured, bleeding, and unable to move.

            Sellers later returned to the crime scene, where the victim was still lying motionless in the wooded area where he had left her. Sellers repeatedly smashed a glass bottle into the victim’s face as she lay on the ground. When she was found by law enforcement at about 7:30 the next morning, she was naked from the waist down, bleeding, on broken glass. She could not communicate with the officers. She had severe trauma to her head and face, including major swelling and multiple lacerations to her face. She suffered extensive injuries from the defendant’s actions and remains disabled. Sellers was arrested April 22, 2016 and has remained in custody ever since.

            In announcing the plea, U.S. Attorney Phillips commended the work of the detectives of the Metropolitan Police Department’s Sexual Assault Unit. He also expressed appreciation to those who worked on the case from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, including Victim/Witness Advocate Lezlie Richardson, Paralegal Specialists Tierra Nanches and Angelina Slagle, and Michael Ambrosino, Special Counsel for DNA and Forensic Evidence Litigation.  Finally, he acknowledged the efforts of Assistant U.S. Attorneys Julianne Johnston, Kenya Davis, and Anwar Graves, who are prosecuting the case.