WASHINGTON – Alonzo Lewis, 38, of Washington, D.C. has been sentenced to a 30-year prison term for two counts of second-degree murder while armed stemming from the brutal shooting of a local married couple, Venius Badgett – a school bus aide and Jaquan Helm – a youth football coach, which took place over Memorial Day weekend in 2018, announced U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves and Chief Pamela Smith, of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD).
Lewis pleaded guilty in October 2023, in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, to two counts of second-degree murder while armed. The plea, which was contingent upon the Court’s, approval calls for an agreed upon 30-year prison term. Today, the Honorable Rainey Brandt approved the agreement and sentenced Lewis accordingly. Following his prison term, Lewis will be placed on five years of supervised release.
According to the government’s evidence, on Saturday, May 26, 2018, at approximately 10:10 p.m., Ms. Badgett and her husband, Mr. Helm, encountered Lewis’s young son riding his bike in a dark parking lot. Fearful that the child might get hit, Ms. Badgett told Lewis’s son not to ride his bike in the parking lot at night. Lewis’s son then told his mother, Lewis’s wife, about the incident, and Lewis’s wife engaged Ms. Badgett in a physical altercation. Mr. Helm was able to break up the altercation, and as he and Ms. Badgett returned home on foot, Lewis’s son called Lewis to the scene. Lewis arrived on scene and fatally shot the couple in front of a number of children who were outside playing over the holiday weekend. The couple leaves behind a number of children, some of whom were on scene that day and who witnessed the murders.
In announcing the sentence, U.S. Attorney Graves and Chief Contee commended the work of those who investigated the case from the Metropolitan Police Department.
This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Alicia Long and Emma McArthur.