Samuel Peaks, a 36-year-old resident of Washington, D.C., has been convicted by a jury in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. He was found guilty of first-degree sexual abuse while armed with aggravating circumstances for an assault that occurred on February 12, 2013. The announcement was made by U.S. Attorney Edward R. Martin, Jr. and Chief Pamela Smith of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD).
Peaks is scheduled to be sentenced on May 2, 2025, by Superior Court Judge Neal Kravitz and could face a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
The evidence presented at trial revealed that on February 12, 2013, at around 6:00 a.m., Peaks approached the victim at the Minnesota Ave. Metro station and attempted to engage her in conversation. After she rejected his advances and walked away, he followed her, brandished a gun, and forced her to perform a sexual act after making her put a condom on him. Following the assault, Peaks discarded the condom on the ground.
The victim promptly reported the incident to police officers who responded to the scene and recovered the condom as evidence. DNA testing conducted in 2013 identified a mixture of DNA from both the victim and an unknown male but did not lead to an immediate suspect identification.
The case remained unsolved until Peaks' arrest for attempted homicide in Maryland in 2020 when his DNA was collected under Maryland’s DNA upon arrest law and entered into CODIS (Combined DNA Index System). A comparison between his DNA profile and that obtained from the condom confirmed it as a match.
The investigation involved collaboration between the Metropolitan Police Department and U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. Assistant United States Attorney Amy Zubrensky led the investigation while Assistant United States Attorneys Sarah Folse and Raha Mokhtari prosecuted this case within their Sex Offense and Domestic Violence Section.