A D.C. man has been sentenced to eight years in prison after being convicted of a pair of armed carjackings last year.
Daron Cottingham, 20, was found guilty of one count of carjacking and two counts for possession of a firearm during a crime of violence.
The carjackings occurred back in January 2022.
According to court documents, Cottingham threatened a man cleaning his BMW with a firearm on Jan. 18, 2022. Cottingham took the victim’s keys and hit him once in the nose with the gun. He then proceeded to steal the victim’s phone before driving away in the man’s BMW.
Ten days later, on Jan. 28, 2022, Cottingham booked a Lyft, then pointed a gun at the driver near the intersection of Interstate 295 and the 11th Street Bridge, according to prosecutors.
The victim fled from the vehicle, and Cottingham led police on a car chase, which ended near the 2600 block of Birney Place SE. Cottingham jumped from the moving vehicle, which crashed into a snowbank, then ran into an apartment building where he concealed the firearm before being arrested.
When he was taken into custody, Cottingham had bank and ID cards belonging to the Lyft driver on his person, as well as a ring of car keys including the BMW key from the Jan. 18 carjacking.
He was sentenced to 10 years with two years suspended, as well as two years of supervised probation and 90 hours of community service, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for D.C.
