A man who pleaded guilty to assaulting Democratic Rep. Angie Craig of Minnesota in the elevator of her Washington apartment was sentenced to more than two years behind bars Thursday.
Kendrid Khalil Hamlin, 27, apologized to Craig and said he wants to get mental health and substance abuse treatment. He was sentenced to 27 months for the February assault.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg acknowledged Hamlin’s difficult upbringing and “frequently unaddressed” mental illness was behind much of his behavior. Still, “some of this conduct has been extremely problematic,” he said.
Craig said Hamlin trapped her in the elevator, then grabbed her neck, slammed her against a steel wall and punched her before she fought him off by throwing her coffee at him. Afterward, she was targeted with death threats and forced to move amid public commentary about her assault, she said in court papers.
“While my physical recovery was days, my mental and emotional recovery has taken much longer and is ongoing,” she wrote.
“I really do apologize to Angie Craig for putting my hands on her, and also the officers,” he said. His mother and father also spoke tearfully to the judge, calling the attack “horrifying” and detailing their decades-long, unsuccessful efforts to get him effective treatment, including searching the streets for him while he was homeless.
Defense attorneys had asked for a sentence of a year and a day with inpatient treatment, while prosecutors had pushed for 39 months. Boasberg said he would recommend the sentence be served in a Bureau of Prisons medical facility.
