U.S. Rep. Angie Craig said Tuesday in a written victim impact statement that she was physically hurt but also traumatized, shaken and forced to move after a February attack in the elevator of her Washington, D.C., apartment building.
"While my physical recovery was days, my mental and emotional recovery has taken much longer and is ongoing," she wrote. "My sense of safety and security has been significantly impacted."
Craig detailed how the assault by a stranger impacted her life in a single-page statement filed with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, where her attacker will be sentenced Thursday by Chief Judge James Boasberg. Kendrid Khalil Hamlin pleaded guilty earlier this year to one count of assaulting a member of Congress and two counts of assaulting law enforcement.
Federal prosecutors have asked for a sentence of more than three years in prison and three years on supervised release.
In requesting the sentence, prosecutors cited Hamlin's history of violent conduct, including at least nine prior arrests for violence or threats that were dismissed as part of plea agreements. "The defendant's actions have also shown that he is unwilling to abide by conditions of release, justifying the need for a significant sentence to incarceration to promote respect for the law," prosecutors wrote.
The government also submitted Craig's signed statement in which she said the case had received attention because she's a member of Congress but on that morning she was "simply a woman followed into an elevator by a man and assaulted there." There's no evidence the attack was politically motivated.
Hamlin trapped her, grabbed her neck, slammed her into the steel wall and punched her in the face, Craig wrote. She suffered bruises, a cut to her lip and "several days of soreness and discomfort," Craig wrote.
Since the attack she has sought professional help for anxiety. She also has taken self-defense training, she wrote.
