A man who pleaded guilty to the random assault of Democratic Rep. Angie Craig of Minnesota in the elevator of her Washington apartment was sentenced to less than three 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 just 27 months in the for the February assault. The judge recommended Hamlin serve his time at the Bureau of Prisons medical facility.
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.
“While my physical recovery was days, my mental and emotional recovery has taken much longer and is ongoing,” she wrote.
Hamlin decided to plead guilty quickly and wants to get treatment for his schizophrenia and substance abuse, his attorney Kathryn D’Adamo Guevara said.
“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.
Craig was getting coffee in the lobby of her building in February when she noticed Hamlin pacing, police wrote in court papers. He came into the elevator with her and said he needed to go to the bathroom and was coming into her apartment, the agent wrote.
After she said he couldn’t, he punched her in the side of her face and grabbed her neck before she escaped by throwing her cup of hot coffee over her shoulder at him, according to court papers.
Hamlin had numerous previous convictions, including for assaulting a police officer, prosecutors said in court papers. There was no evidence the attack was politically motivated, Craig’s chief of staff has said.
Violent crime in Democrat-controlled Washington, D.C. has spiked in recent years. Violence is up nearly 40 percent in 2023 compared to the prior year.
The Associated Press contributed to this article