A man who apparently cut off his GPS ankle monitor while on probation was found guilty Wednesday of raping and beating a young mother in her Southeast D.C. home.
Antwon Pitt, 21, had been on trial for a crime that shocked residents in Hill East, near the Stadium-Armory Metro station, last fall. A jury found him guilty Wednesday on all counts against him.
The victim was working from home on the afternoon of Oct. 13, 2015 when she looked up to see a man in her living room at her small apartment building in the 1800 block of A Street SE.
"Stop fighting or I'll kill you," the attacker told her, documents say. The assault left her with facial fractures that required surgery, and bruising all over her body.
The victim told police the attacker was 6-foot-5, had a lean build and wore distinctive gray shoes with orange shoelaces.
Pitt had been arrested, charged with a felony and released just two weeks before the attack, News4 previously reported. He was found Sept. 30, 2015 in the second-floor men's room of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library with a GPS ankle monitor and synthetic marijuana, police said.
At the time, he was on probation for an armed robbery in July 2013, for which he took a plea deal, records show. He was given two years confinement and three years supervised release.
After Pitt was arrested at the library in September, he was charged with felony drug possession, released prior to a trial and ordered to not commit any crimes, records show.
In addition to the brutal sexual assault, Pitt was accused of a second crime after removing the GPS device, court records show.
Local
Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia local news, events and information
A woman awoke about 6:15 a.m. Oct. 6, 2015 in her home in the 600 block of Michigan Avenue NE, near Catholic University, to find a stranger standing in her bedroom. The man said, "I will get out of here" and left with a tote bag containing her cellphone, wallet and university identification card, court documents say.
The victim described the intruder as a man of the same size and build as the victim of the Oct. 13 attack did, noting the same distinctive shoes with bright laces.
Pitt, who matches that physical description, was found with both women's cellphones, prosecutors said after his arrest Oct. 14.
Councilmember Charles Allen has said he believed it was worth looking at whether penalties for tampering with a GPS ankle monitor should be harsher.
"I don't understand why he was out on the streets," said ANC Commissioner Denise Krepp, who attended the trial every day. "He was caught in Martin Luther King library with a GPS that had been taken off. And then the judge let him go. The judge let him go, and then my neighbor was raped."
Pitt faces a statutory maximum sentence of 30 years.
