Brothers Get Nearly 600 Years for Home Invasions

A pair of Maryland brothers will spend the rest of their lives behind bars after two violent home invasions in 2012.

According to prosecutors, Kindu and Hakeem Bell wore black masks and carried guns when they attacked a woman in March 2012. They pistol-whipped her and forced her back into her Upper Marlboro apartment, where they demanded money and threatened to rape her. When she called out for her roommate, one of the brothers strangled her to the point of losing consciousness, prosecutors said.

When she awoke, she was sexually assaulted by one of the brothers, while the other robbed her roommate. Prosecutors say one of the victims was able to scream loudly enough to wake up their neighbors who called police. The brothers fled the scene but left behind the key to the stolen car they had driven to the scene.

Kindu was sentenced to 181 years in that home invasion, and his brother, Hakeen, got 161 years.

Kindu was sentenced to an additional 240 years for a Bowie, Md.  home invasion in which he and another man terrorized a family, again donning masks and armed with handguns. Prosecutors say Kindu and the unidentified co-conspirator tied up three adults afer pistol-whipping them, then made a 6-year-old child watch them pistol whip another adult. The two men fled in the family's SUV.

Once they arrested the brothers, officers said they had to rent out a storage unit for all of the stolen items that were housed in the brothers' home.

They face even more jail time when they're sentenced later this month in an armed carjacking during the same month. 

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