A District man who waited more than three hours in a parked car before ambushing a victim at gunpoint, pistol-whipping him, and forcing him to strip naked in front of neighbors has been sentenced to five years in prison — eight years short of what federal prosecutors had requested. Gregory Grooms, a 27-year-old District resident, was sentenced in D.C. Superior Court after a jury convicted him in March 2026 on five counts stemming from the August 2024 attack.
According to a release from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, prosecutors asked Superior Court Judge Deborah Israel to sentence Grooms to 13 years in prison, the top of the District's voluntary sentencing guidelines. Israel instead handed down the mandatory minimum of five years required under D.C. Code § 22-4504(b) for possession of a firearm during a crime of violence, as reported by DailyVoice.com.
Government evidence at trial laid out a chilling timeline. Grooms and an accomplice drove to the parking lot of the victim's apartment building on August 6, 2024, and waited there for more than three hours before making their move. Just after 1 a.m. on August 7, as the 31-year-old victim stepped outside to meet a woman for drinks, the two men ambushed him at gunpoint, according to the DOJ release.
Beaten, Stripped, and Paraded Through the Building
The attack turned brutal quickly. Grooms and his accomplice pistol-whipped the victim repeatedly in the head and face, then forced him into the building's lobby and an elevator, where they made him strip at gunpoint. The struggle spilled into the lobby and elevator before the two men paraded the victim naked from the waist down through the building, per the DOJ account.
U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said the defendant and his accomplice ambushed the victim at gunpoint, pistol-whipped him, forced him to strip, and paraded him naked through the building — a description her office released alongside the sentencing announcement. The accomplice was not named in the government's release and has been referred to only as an unidentified second assailant; it remains unclear whether that individual has been identified or charged.
Traffic Stop Led to Arrest a Week Later
Metropolitan Police Department officers stopped Grooms during a traffic stop on August 14, 2024, a week after the attack. Officers found an unlicensed handgun hidden underneath the driver's seat of his vehicle, leading to his arrest. Grooms has remained in custody since the attack, according to the DOJ.
The March 2026 jury verdict found Grooms guilty of conspiracy, assault with a dangerous weapon, possession of a firearm during a crime of violence, unlawful possession of a firearm, and carrying a pistol without a license. In addition to the five-year prison term, Judge Israel ordered three years of supervised release once Grooms completes his sentence.
Pirro Says Sentence Falls Short of Conduct's Severity
Pirro, who was appointed interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia in May 2025 and confirmed by the U.S. Senate that August, said five years does not reflect the full severity of the defendant's conduct. Her office's push for the guidelines' maximum in this case fits a broader pattern; prosecutors under Pirro also sought the top guideline sentence of 24 months in a July 2026 domestic strangulation case before the same judge, per the DOJ.
D.C. Superior Court judges operate under voluntary sentencing guidelines set by the District of Columbia Sentencing Commission, which recommend ranges but leave judges free to sentence down to statutory mandatory minimums. That framework gave Israel legal authority to decline the government's 13-year request and instead impose the five-year floor tied to the firearm charge, even as Pirro's office voiced its disappointment publicly.
