Prosecutors seek 18 years in prison for officer convicted of murder of Karon Hylton-Brown

WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors will seek 18 years in prison next month for a D.C. police officer convicted in a 2020 police pursuit that ended with the death of 20-year-old Karon Hylton-Brown.

DC Police Officer Terence Sutton, 40, was convicted by a jury in 2022 of second-degree murder, conspiracy to obstruct and obstruction of justice. His commanding officer, DC Police Lt. Andrew Zabavsky, 56, was convicted at the same trial of conspiracy to obstruct and obstruction of justice for their alleged efforts to cover up the details of the chase and crash.

Sutton, a 13-year veteran of DC Police, was a member of the now-defunct Crime Suppression Team assigned to patrol the Brightwood Park neighborhood in October 2020 when he and Zabavsky attempted to stop Hylton-Brown after spotting him riding a moped without a helmet on a sidewalk. Hylton-Brown fled the officers, who pursued for three minutes across 10 city blocks – at times going the wrong way on city streets and accelerating to twice the residential speed limit. The chase ended catastrophically on Kennedy Street when Hylton-Brown pulled out of an alley and was struck by an oncoming vehicle. He died two days later of injuries sustained in the crash.

Prosecutors argued during a nearly two-month trial that the officers had not only violated DC Police policies on chases – which prohibit the pursuit of suspects for minor traffic offenses – but had attempted to cover up details about the chase and crash afterward. Although Sutton’s police cruiser never made contact with Hylton-Brown or his moped at any point during the chase, prosecutors told jurors he had nevertheless committed murder because of his “conscious disregard of the extreme danger of death or seriously bodily injury.”

Sutton’s conviction marked the first time in DC Police history an officer was found to have committed murder in the line of duty.

The jury's guilty verdict visibly shocked Sutton and prompted an outburst from Hylton-Brown's mother, Karen Hylton, who was removed from the courtroom. She was later charged with assaulting a U.S. Marshal during the incident, but was acquitted by a jury last year. In late 2021, Hylton filed a wrongful death suit against both officers, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bower and DC Police seeking more than $31 billion in damages. That lawsuit remains pending.

In a sentencing memo filed Wednesday, prosecutors Elizabeth Aloi and Risa Berkower said Sutton’s decision to chase Hylton-Brown on nothing more than a “hunch” and a minor traffic infraction “flew in the face of the badge the defendant wore.” They asked a federal judge to sentence him to 216 months, or 18 years, in prison. If granted, the sentence would fall in the middle of the 12-to-24-years range prosecutors calculated as his sentencing guideline. For Zabavsky, prosecutors are seeking 10 years in prison.

Throughout the case, Sutton’s attorneys have argued both prosecutors and the court suppressed information from the public and jury about Hylton-Brown’s alleged membership in the Kennedy Street Crew (KDY) gang linked to numerous incidents of violence and drug trafficking in the area where the chase occurred. On the day of his death, Hylton-Brown was identified in a “beat book” prepared by DC Police’s Intelligence Unit as a verified member of KDY. Defense attorney J. Michael Hannon argued at trial that another officer had flagged suspicious behavior by Hylton-Brown earlier in the day and said Sutton and Zabavsky believed he had returned to Brightwood Park that evening to retaliate after a dispute.

Last June – roughly six months after Sutton and Zabavsky were convicted at trial – federal prosecutors indicted 12 alleged KDY members on a slew of charges ranging from conspiracy to commit drug trafficking to assault with a deadly weapon. In a press release issued alongside the arrests, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia said the KDY members were operating open-air drug markets in the Brightwood Park neighborhood.

In a motion to compel additional discovery last month, Hannon argued prosecutors had failed to provide potentially exculpatory information about the then-ongoing investigation into KDY and Hylton-Brown’s alleged membership in the gang. U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman denied that motion last week, ruling that Hylton-Brown’s alleged involvement in KDY had “no bearing on the central issue of [Sutton’s] guilt in this case.”

In the defense sentencing memo, Sutton’s attorneys Hannon and Carmen Hernandez argued a prison term anywhere near the time sought by prosecutors would extraordinary given the lack of any similar case anywhere in the country where an officer had been charged with murder without making felonious contact with the victim. They also argued Sutton could ben in physical danger in prison, given the number of KDY members who have been put behind bars in recent years.

Hannon and Hernandez argued Friedman should instead sentence Sutton to a term of incarceration and supervised release within the appropriate range – and then suspend all of it in favor of a period of probation up to the maximum of five years.

In support of their memo, Sutton’s attorneys submitted a number of letters to the court, including one from a DC Police detective who lauded Sutton’s work ethic and described him as “one of the best members on the entire Metropolitan Police Department in my 15 years of service.”

Sutton and Zabavsky were scheduled to be sentenced by Friedman on Sept. 11 at 10 a.m. in D.C. District Court.