A 20-year-old man was sentenced in a Washington, D.C., court Friday to seven years in prison for holding a Catholic nun at gunpoint and stealing a convent’s van blocks away from the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception and Catholic University of America.
D.C. Superior Court Judge Marisa Demeo accepted Brandon Brown’s guilty plea and ordered he serve seven years behind bars followed by three years of supervised release on the charges of carjacking and carrying a pistol without a license.
Court documents say that on the evening of April 9, the victim, dressed in full clerical garb, walked outside of an unspecified building to retrieve a CD from the minivan that belonged to her convent.
The Dodge Caravan was parked in a lot in the 1300 block of Quincy Street in Northeast Washington, one block from the Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land in America.
The victim said she noticed Brown while she was walking to the van. He had a red banana over his face. She continued walking to the van, unlocked the door, turned on the ignition, ejected the CD from the stereo, then got out of the van.
As she left the van and walked back through the parking lot, Brown walked over to her and once he got within a few feet, he demanded she give him the keys.
The nun did not respond. Suddenly, Brown pulled out a gun, stepped closer to her, and put the gun against her head. He asked for the keys again.
The victim gave him a single key then said, “May God bless you.”
Brown hopped in the van and sped off. The nun went back into a nearby building and told others she had just been carjacked at gunpoint and the group called police.
Officers from the Metropolitan Police Department found the van shortly after and tried to pull Brown over. He stopped, got out, and ran from police. Brown was later caught and police recovered a loaded, small gray semi-automatic handgun tucked into his sweatpants. They also found a red banana, the one he used to cover his face when robbing his victim.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Ellen D’Angelo prosecuted the case.
