WASHINGTON D.C. — Dawayne Joseph Spriggs, 35, of Washington, D.C., and Prince George’s County, Maryland, was sentenced Tuesday to nine years in prison for obstruction of justice and subornation of perjury, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro announced.
Spriggs pleaded guilty June 23, 2025, in Superior Court of the District of Columbia to obstruction of justice. Judge Jason Park also ordered a five-year term of supervised release following his prison sentence.
A District of Columbia grand jury indicted Spriggs on Sept. 13, 2023, in connection with a 2014 cold case sexual assault. A superseding indictment on Oct. 11, 2023, added the obstruction charge.
“Neither time nor pressure nor obstruction will prevent this office from identifying and convicting the guilty,” Pirro said. “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.”
Spriggs was arrested May 18, 2023, for sexually assaulting a stranger on July 6, 2014. A 2016 database search matched DNA from the victim’s rape kit to evidence in a 2013 Anne Arundel County, Maryland, assault, but the assailant’s identity remained unknown.
In 2023, detectives with the Metropolitan Police Department’s Cold Case Sexual Assault Unit developed a lead that led them to lawfully collect DNA from Spriggs. The samples matched both rape kits. He was arrested in May 2023 on D.C. sexual assault charges and indicted that September.
While awaiting trial, Spriggs orchestrated a months-long scheme from the D.C. Jail to obstruct justice. Prosecutors said he pressured his then-girlfriend to tamper with evidence and urged associates to lie. He had her obtain photographs of the victim from social media and provided them to others to falsely identify her. He also solicited fabricated witness statements to present to investigators and the court in hopes of dismissing the case.
Spriggs instructed associates to delete incriminating texts and pressured a family member to commit perjury before the grand jury. His then-girlfriend also pleaded guilty to attempted obstruction and has been sentenced.
The case was part of the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s Cold Case Sexual Assault Initiative, launched in 2018 to reinvestigate and prosecute unsolved sexual assault cases. The initiative works with MPD, the FBI, the U.S. Marshals Service and state and local law enforcement agencies in the Washington area.
Joining Pirro in announcing the sentence was MPD Chief Pamela Smith. They commended the investigative efforts of MPD’s Sexual Assault Unit and acknowledged Assistant U.S. Attorney Amy Zubrensky, who prosecuted the case.
For more information, contact USADC.Media@usdoj.gov