Obstruction of Justice Scheme Results in Nine Years in Prison

WASHINGTON - Dawayne Joseph Spriggs, 35, of Washington, D.C. and Prince George's County, Maryland, was sentenced today to nine years in prison for obstruction of justice and subornation of perjury, announced U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro.

Spriggs pleaded guilty on June 23, 2025, to obstruction of justice in Superior Court of the District of Columbia. The Honorable Judge Jason Park also ordered that Spriggs serve a five-year term of supervised release after released from prison.

On September 13, 2023, a District of Columbia Grand Jury returned an indictment charging Spriggs in a 2014 cold case sexual assault. On October 11, 2023, the Grand Jury returned a superseding indictment, adding the charge of obstructing justice.

"Neither time nor pressure nor obstruction will prevent this office from identifying and convicting the guilty," said U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro. "This defendant pressured many witnesses to give false testimony and lie to cover up his violent crimes, which corrupts the principles of truth-seeking upon which our system of justice is based-it didn't work."

On May 18, 2023, the defendant was arrested for sexually assaulting a stranger on July 6, 2014. In 2016, a database reported a match between the DNA profile obtained from the victim's rape kit and another sexual assault offense that had been reported in Anne Arundel County, Maryland in 2013, but the assailant's remained unknown. In 2023, detectives with MPD's Cold Case Sexual Assault Unit obtained a lead as to the assailant's identity that led them to lawfully collect DNA samples from defendant Spriggs. These DNA samples were tested by both law enforcement entities and resulted in a match to both rape kits. The defendant was arrested on the D.C. sexual assault charges in May 2023 and indicted in September of 2023.

While awaiting trial in the District of Columbia, the defendant engaged in a months-long scheme to obstruct justice and evade responsibility for the underlying assault. Over hundreds of recorded phone calls and texts from the D.C. Jail, he pressured his then-girlfriend to tamper with evidence and urged associates to lie for him. The defendant bullied his girlfriend into obtaining photographs of the victim from her Instagram and other social media and provided them to his associates so they could falsely identify her. Over numerous months, the defendant solicited others to provide invented witness statements to his investigator, the grand jury, and the Court regarding events they did not witness. The defendant's plan was for his investigator to bring these false statements to the government, causing the government to dismiss the case. The defendant attempted to cover up his corrupt actions and instructed his associates to clear their phones of his incriminating texts and emails. He pressured a close family member to commit perjury in the grand jury to undermine the government's case. For her role in the scheme, the defendant's then-girlfriend also pleaded guilty to attempted obstruction of justice and has been sentenced.

This case was brought as part of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia's Cold Case Sexual Assault Initiative and investigated by MPD's Sexual Assault Unit. In February 2018, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia created the Cold Case Sexual Assault Initiative. The goal of the Initiative is to collaborate with law enforcement partners to reinvestigate, solve and bring charges in previously unsolved cases of sexual assault against adults and juveniles. The Cold Case Initiative works with the MPD, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the United States Marshals Service, and state and local law enforcement agencies in the DMV area.

Joining in the announcement was Chief Pamela Smith of the Metropolitan Police Department.

In announcing the sentence, U.S. Attorney Pirro and Chief Smith commended the efforts of those who investigated the case from the Metropolitan Police Department. They also acknowledged the work of Assistant U.S. Attorney Amy Zubrensky, who prosecuted the case.