Baltimore Man Convicted Of Carjacking, Conspiracy And Destruction Of Property Resulting In Breach At The National Security Agency |
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U.S. Attorney’s Office
District of Maryland
26 October 2017
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact ELIZABETH MORSE at (410) 209-4855
www.justice.gov/usao/md
Baltimore, Maryland – On October 25, 2017, a federal jury convicted Dontae Small, age 43, of Baltimore, Maryland on conspiracy, carjacking, and destruction of government property, after he rammed a stolen car into a security gate at the National Security Agency in Ft. Meade, Maryland.
The verdict was announced by Acting United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Stephen M. Schenning; Special Agent in Charge Gordon B. Johnson of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Baltimore Field Office; Commissioner Kevin Davis of the Baltimore Police Department; Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby; Anne Arundel County Police Chief Tim Altomare, the National Security Agency Police and the Ft. George G. Meade Police Services Division.
According to evidence at presented at trial, on October 4, 2015, Small and his co-conspirators were riding in a white minivan in the Federal Hill neighborhood of Baltimore, looking for victims to rob. At approximately 10:09 p.m. Small texted a male co-conspirator the following message: “Get the dude cpming down da st.I parked on smoking a pipe” [sic].
Three masked co-conspirators assaulted Victim 1 on Grindall Street in the Federal Hill neighborhood of Baltimore. The carjackers pointed a silver handgun at the victim and robbed him of the keys to his car, a 2008 Acura TSX. The conspirators then took the car. On that same night, two of the conspirators approached Victims 2 and 3 a block away on Riverside Avenue, and brandished a silver handgun. The robbers obtained an iPhone phone that had fallen from Victim 3’s pocket before fleeing.
On October 7, 2015, Small drove the stolen Acura to Arundel Mills Mall in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. The Anne Arundel Police identified the car as stolen and set up surveillance. When Small returned to the vehicle and unlocked it using Victim 1’s keys, the police attempted to arrest him. Instead, Small took off over a curb in the parking lot, narrowly missing pedestrians and drove without his lights out of the Mall at a high rate of speed. The police followed and Small engaged him in a high-speed pursuit, eventually turning into Ft. Meade and then crashing the car into a security gate protecting the National Security Agency. Small then fled and hid in a nearby sewer for hours as security personnel and police attempted to find him. The NSA was closed to essential personnel for a day while the search continued. When Small emerged from the sewer the next morning, the police were able to arrest him after a brief foot chase and struggle.
Small faces a sentence of 15 years in prison for carjacking; a maximum of 10 years in prison for destruction of government property; and a maximum of five years in prison for conspiracy. Sentencing is set for 11:00 a.m. on February 6, 2018 in U.S. District Court in Baltimore.
Acting United States Attorney Stephen M. Schenning commended FBI, the Baltimore City Police Department, Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office, Anne Arundel County Police Department, National Security Agency Associate Directorate for Security and Counterintelligence (Office of General Counsel) and Ft. George G. Meade Police Services Division for their work in the investigation. Mr. Schenning thanked Assistant U.S. Attorneys Paul Riley and Sandra Wilkinson, who are prosecuting the case and NSA attorney Hillary Hellmann for her assistance in the prosecution.