No jail time for 2 teens who jumped ex-DOGE staffer, ignited Trump’s D.C. crime crackdown
A teen boy and girl who attacked a former Department of Government Efficiency employee and set off President Trump’s crime crackdown in the District will avoid jail time for their roles in the mob assault.
A D.C. Superior Court judge sentenced the two 15-year-olds to probation for the Aug. 3 attack, which left ex-DOGE staffer Edward Coristine battered and bloodied — an image that angered Mr. Trump and prompted the surge of federal agents and a National Guard deployment into the District to combat street crime.
The judge placed the teen boy, who pleaded guilty last month for his part in the beatdown as well as an unrelated robbery that same night, on a yearlong probation. The girl pleaded guilty to simple assault during the Tuesday hearing and received nine months of probation.
Prosecutors sought to have both teens jailed until their 21st birthdays, which is the maximum sentence for juvenile convicts under D.C. law.
The two young offenders, both from Hyattsville, are not allowed to contact each other or return to the District except for school, work or family matters.
“I hope you can figure things out and be ready for the consequences,” Mr. Coristine, 19, reportedly told the defendants via video link during the hearing. He also thanked police and prosecutors for swiftly bringing the two to justice.
A police report said Mr. Coristine and his date were walking back to his car near 14th Street NW when the gang of 10 youths ran up to them.
“As we get to the car and she begins to fumble for the keys, they begin to shout at us, and really quickly I knew something was really off about this situation,” Mr. Coristine told Fox News in an interview.
“So she unlocks the car, I rush her into the driving seat. I close the door behind her, and she’s able to lock the doors. Right as I turn around, they’re right up on me — just a few feet away,” he said.
Court documents said the youths suggested they were going to take the car, which is when Mr. Coristine confronted them.
“They slammed me against the car and started throwing a bunch of punches,” the victim said. “I keep my hands up. I’m getting a lot of punches here and I’m just trying to protect my head the best way that I can.”
The 15-year-old boy pleaded guilty to assaulting the former DOGE employee as well as taking part in a strong-arm robbery at a U Street gas station shortly before the youths attacked Mr. Coristine.
Prosecutors said the boy hit two victims and kicked another one in the head as they lay on the ground.
The eight other teens who helped jump Mr. Coristine were never found by authorities.
A week after the attack, Mr. Trump declared a crime emergency in the District. More than 2,000 National Guard troops were deployed in the city, and federal agents joined the Metropolitan Police Department on patrols throughout the nation’s capital.
The monthlong emergency, which ended Sept. 10, netted more than 2,300 arrests and 220 gun seizures.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, said the surge in law enforcement drove down violent crime during the 30-day period. Homicides fell 50%, robberies dropped nearly 60% and carjackings plummeted more than 70% in that time.
But Ms. Bowser and other D.C. leaders, almost all Democrats, told Congress last month that the federal intervention merely accelerated a crime decline that was already underway, thanks to local policy changes.
House Republicans have passed a handful of bills looking to exert greater influence over the District’s public safety system in light of the greater attention to crime.
Their proposals would relax rules around police pursuits, give the president more say in nominating judges to the D.C. Superior Court and seek to lower the age at which youths can be charged as adults to 14.
• This article is based in part on wire service reports.
