A former District of Columbia resident with a propensity for violence toward women was sentenced to seven years in prison for obtaining and using the identity of a Maryland woman. Thirty-three-year-old James T. Dillard’s theft of cell phone service in the woman’s name came to the attention of D.C. detectives in 2009 investigating a sexual assault case from 2004.
Dillard, 33, was sentenced in D.C. Superior Court last week, after being convicted in September 2010 of first-degree identity theft and first-degree theft.
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The same jury was unable to reach a verdict on a charge of first-degree sexual abuse.
Prosecutors said it remains a mystery how Dillard obtained the ID theft victim’s name, address, date of birth and Social Security number to open a cell phone account with Sprint. Over six months in 2004, Dillard had the bills routed to an addresses near his residence on Randolph Place Northwest. In total, the defendant stole in excess of $1,700 in services from Sprint.
During that same time, a nude woman fled from Dillard’s neighborhood saying she had been raped at a residence by a man she recently met named J.T.
She couldn’t say where the attack had occurred, but she knew the man’s cell phone number. The billing records didn’t come back to Dillard or his address because they had been fraudulently obtained, police said. The case grew cold.
Five years later, investigators tied Dillard to the phone number while investigating the theft of cell phone service and numerous credit cards. Dillard pleaded guilty to a count of access fraud in 2009.
Prosecutors tried Dillard for the 2004 rape on Randolph Street and the identity theft at the same trial.
A D.C. jury convicted Dillard of the identity theft but could not agree on the sex assault charges, voting 11-1 in favor of conviction.
At sentencing, Judge Herbert B. Dixon Jr. emphasized Dillard’s criminal past and violent assaults on women.
According to prosecutors:
• In 1998, he was convicted in Los Angeles for punching a woman and breaking her car windows.
• In January 2004, he was arrested in D.C. after a homeless woman was found naked and screaming for help, but the case was dismissed after the homeless woman failed to appear in court.
• In August 2004, in Virginia, he assaulted his then-girlfriend after she tried to break up with him. He took control of the steering wheel while she was driving it and swerved. He then held pulled her hair to prevent her from leaving the car, then dragged her on a concrete path. He was convicted.
• In December 2004, he picked up a dancer at a D.C. nightclub and took her to his home in Alexandria. He punched her in the face, pulled her hair and began choking her while threatening to kill her. He was convicted of felony abduction and assault.
