Jason Lewis, the former D.C. employee found guilty of shooting and killing a D.C. teenager, is set to be sentenced in the case in the early days of the new year.
As he awaits sentencing, prosecutors are accusing him of leveraging his connection to one of the witnesses — his wife, LaPrelle Ballinger — to obstruct the truth from reaching the jury. Now, they want Lewis punished for that, asking for a sentence of 25 years in prison.
When defense attorney Ed Ungvarsky made his opening statement in D.C. Superior Court last summer, prosecutors realized the defense theory of what happened on Quincy Street NE in January 2023 did not match the evidence.
In a new court filing, prosecutors say they believed getting Lewis's wife to testify for the government could help their case. So they gave Ballinger a subpoena.
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Then, Ballinger vanished. According to prosecutors, U.S. Marshals could not find her.
"The government anticipated that her testimony would be that she only heard two gunshots [which would have] equipped the jury with a narrative wholly inconsistent with Defendants already far-fetched version of events that a fourth gunshot... was fired at him," prosecutors said in the court filing.
If true, that would have given Lewis a claim of self defense, prosecutors say. But there was no evidence a fourth shot was fired.
The court filing adds that if Ballinger didn't testify it "conveniently weighed in Defendants favor. Of course, Defendant knows how detrimental her testimony would be to his own trial."
But in a statement to News4, defense attorney Ungvarsky says, "From the moment he gave CPR to the young man and called 911 through his own trial testimony, Jason Lewis was always present and fully cooperative with the process. The government has zero basis for its claim and is flat-wrong. His wife had a legal privilege not to testify. If the government still wanted to call his wife as a witness, its failure to subpoena her is because of its own choices."
On the night of the shooting, Jan. 7, 2023, prosecutors say three young men, including Blake, were looking into parked cars when Lewis came out of his home and fired three shots.
Two of those shots hit Blake, who could be heard saying "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please no, no, no, I'm a kid," and "I'm only 12, I'm only 12."
In the last line of its filing, prosecutors say, "Ultimately, Defendant killed a minor, testified untruthfully, and was likely complicit in making an important government witness unavailable for trial."
Lewis will be sentenced on Jan. 10, 2025. He was found not guilty of second degree murder, but guilty of manslaughter, assault and firearms charges.
