A man arrested in October in connection with a brutal rape and beating of a woman inside her home near Capitol Hill has been extradited to the District and was ordered detained on Friday until his next court appearance in January.
Antwon Pitt, 21, of Southeast, is charged with first-degree sex abuse and first-degree burglary. Police said he is also charged in connection with a burglary that occurred in Northeast Washington a week before the alleged sexual assault.
Police said the rape occurred in the afternoon of Oct. 13 in the Lincoln Park neighborhood, near RFK Stadium and close to Capitol Hill and Hill East. It happened amid a spate of street robberies that angered and frightened residents, hundreds of whom packed a community meeting at the end of October.
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The residents pressed for information not only about how police were protecting them but also on how they could track defendants through the criminal justice system. People were angry that, at the time, D.C. police would not tell them the name of the person who was arrested in connection with the alleged rape because he had been arrested in Prince George’s County and had not yet been charged in the District.
On Friday, nearly two months after that October meeting, D.C. police revealed the suspect’s identity as Pitt. He made his initial appearance Friday afternoon in D.C. Superior Court. Police said he lives in Southeast, but court documents list an address for him on Massachusetts Avenue in Northwest, near Union Station.
An arrest affidavit offers additional details about the Oct. 13 attack. The document says the victim was at home working at her computer when she looked up and saw a man standing in her room. Police said he entered through an unlocked front door.
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The document describes a brutal attack in which the man forced her onto her bed, raped her and threatened to kill her if she did not give him the passcode to her cellphone. Police said in the affidavit that the woman suffered fractures to her face that required surgery, and bruises to her neck, body and arms. Police said the man stole her phone, cash and credit cards.
Police said that they captured the suspect on a surveillance camera outside the woman’s house and that police spotted him on a street in Prince George’s the next day. Police said he had the stolen phone, cash and checks in the victim’s husband’s name.
Authorities have also charged Pitt in connection with a burglary that occurred Oct. 6 on Michigan Avenue in Northeast Washington. Police said he entered a house where a woman was sleeping and stood over her bed. When she woke up, the woman said, the man told her, “Hello.” The man then left the house with a bag belonging to the woman that had the words “Commonwealth Shakespeare” written on it. Police said the man also took her iPhone.
Police said they used the tracking system from the phone taken in the burglary to trace the device to the Brookland Metro Station, Gallery Place and then to Mitchellville in Prince George’s, where Pitt was arrested.