Two lawyers accustomed to fighting white-collar crime have helped put a double-murderer behind bars.
Nathaniel Waldron was sentenced Monday to 32 years in prison for the 2006 shooting deaths of Davion “Rock” Holt, 20, and 16-year-old and Michael Lucas. The sentence was part of a plea deal with veteran public corruption prosecutors Steve Durham and Michael Atkinson. Durham started his career prosecuting violent crimes, but he hadn’t been “on the line” in more than 11 years. Atkinson had never prosecuted a violent crime.
“It’s a whole different set of challenges,” Atkinson said. “Generally, witnesses in a white-collar case fear loss of job, not loss of life. It’s a pretty big difference. It takes a lot of work and a lot of persistence.”
Atkinson also said he struggled with the human impact of the violence. It’s one thing to see dollars and cents being stolen, but it’s another to see what happens to victims of violent crime.
“There’s a big difference between looking a balance sheet and a morgue photo,” he said.
Waldron admitted in court that he gunned down Holt and Lucas as they chatted with a crowd of friends behind a house in the 200 block of L Street SW in 2006. Waldron walked past the crowd. Holt followed him and then Lucas followed Holt. The three men exchanged a few words and then Waldron opened fire. Holt was struck twice in the chest and three times in the back.
When the shooting started, Lucas fled. A bullet struck him in the thigh, severing his femoral artery. Lucas ran two blocks, barefoot, before crouching behind a tree and passing out. He never awoke. Five days, he was pronounced dead. No motive for the killings was ever established.
As chief of the U.S. Attorney’s public corruption section, Durham has helped put away some of the capital’s most gluttonous public figures. He supervised the prosecution of disgraced lobbyist Mitchell Wade and also $48 million D.C. tax-scam mastermind “Mother” Harriette Walters.
But trying a murderer “is some of the most important work a prosecutor can do,” Durham said.
