Update: After a two-day trial in federal court, a jury found Karen Hylton not guilty of assaulting a federal officer. Hylton had been charged with assault after she reacted loudly to the guilty verdict for the police officers involved in a chase that killed her son, Karon Hylton-Brown, in October of 2020. Prosecutors had accused Hylton of violently pushing a chief deputy with the U.S. Marshals Service as he was trying to take her out of the courtroom; Hylton denied assaulting the officer.

Original:

Months after a historic trial that ended in convictions for two D.C police officers in connection with the death of her son, Karen Hylton has been charged with a federal crime for her reaction in the courthouse after the jury read its verdict.

In a courtroom at U.S. District Court in December, after a trial lasting more than eight weeks, a jury found Terence Sutton and Andrew Zabavsky guilty on several charges for their roles in the police chase that ended in the death of Karon Hylton-Brown, Karen Hylton’s son.

The case was the first time in memory a D.C. police officer had been convicted of — or even charged with — an on-duty murder.

Hylton-Brown died from injuries sustained during a moped crash in October 2020; He collided with an oncoming car as he turned out of an alley during a police chase. The jury found Sutton guilty of second-degree murder, deciding that the officer acted with reckless disregard for Hylton-Brown’s safety when he chased him through streets and alleyways in Brightwood Park in an unmarked police car. The jury also found Sutton and his supervisor, Lieutenant Andrew Zabavsky, guilty of conspiracy and obstruction of justice; prosecutors argued that they tried to cover up what had happened and concealed key information from D.C. police officials in the aftermath of the fatal crash.

When the verdict was read, Hylton reacted loudly and cursed at the defendants. Federal law enforcement working security for the courtroom carried her out as the presiding judge, Paul Friedman, ordered them to take her away. She was detained in an Alexandria jail for the night and released the next day pending further investigation. In an interview with the Post after her release, Hylton denied assaulting a law enforcement officer but made no apologies for yelling at the defendants, saying she did it to tell them they were “done tormenting our community.”

Now, federal prosecutors are charging her with “assaulting, resisting, or impeding” federal law enforcement. Those charges can carry up to three years in prison, under certain circumstances. The charges were first reported by the Washington Post.

Law enforcement wrote in charging documents that as the jury read its verdict on Dec. 21, Hylton “started yelling what sounded like ‘Ba…’ and then cut herself off in the middle of the next word. She also stomped her feet, threw her hands up, and started snapping her fingers.”

Then, they allege, she cursed at the defendants as courtroom security officers escorted her out of the courtroom, yelling “bald headed fuck,” “fucking pussies!” and “Sutton Got Murdered!”

A courtroom witness reached Thursday said they did not recall Hylton saying those specific things. The witness and this reporter do remember Hylton using the Jamaican patois expletive “bomboclaat” in reference to the defendants (the witness spoke on the condition of anonymity because of privacy concerns).

The charging documents allege that Hylton lunged towards Aaron Smith – a chief deputy with the U.S. Marshal Service – and “violently push[ed] him with both hands,” causing him to fall back onto a bench. She was then placed in handcuffs.

The charging documents say that two days after the push, Smith went to urgent care with chest pain.

“His X-rays were negative, but he was prescribed cyclobenzaprine and naproxen for his discomfort,” according to the documents.

The court witness, who had a view of the chaotic scene as it spilled out of the courtroom and into the hallway outside of it, told DCist/WAMU they did not see Hylton violently push a court security officer.

According to the charging documents, extra U.S. Marshals were on hand the day of the verdict “to ensure security because of prior disruptions in the trial,” adding that Hylton had been previously barred from the courtroom audience “because of her disruptive behavior.”

Hylton had been barred from the courtroom at one point during the trial because defense attorneys for Sutton and Zabavsky argued that her visible and emotional reactions to testimony and evidence could potentially bias the jury. The judge, Friedman, initially agreed. But he later reversed that decision, finding there wasn’t enough evidence to support the defense’s claims. From that point on, Hylton periodically attended the trial proceedings in person, almost always accompanied by an employee from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Hylton has filed a civil suit against the city for her her son’s death; Her attorney for that suit declined to comment to DCist/WAMU for this story. The Post reports that her attorney for the federal case against her has been unable to reach her since the charges were filed, so it’s unclear whether she is aware of them.

“She’s experiencing financial instability and lack of access to a phone,” her defense attorney, Katie D’Adamo Guevara, said during a hearing Wednesday, according to the outlet. Law enforcement has not been able to serve her a summons to appear in court; A judge said he would issue a warrant for her arrest if she did not appear in court before May 30.

The charges against Hylton come amid continued litigation in the Sutton and Zabavsky case. Both Sutton and Zabavsky have maintained their innocence and are vigorously fighting the conviction. Both have filed motions asking for a new trial — or for the judge to throw out the jury’s verdict and acquit the officers, arguing that prosecutors intentionally confused the jury, lied during the proceedings, and conducted themselves improperly in a litany of other ways.

In a hearing on Wednesday, Sutton’s attorney also argued that Friedman’s decision to prevent the jury from seeing certain evidence — including cash found on Hylton-Brown’s body, the presence of an ankle monitor on his leg, and a toxicology report showing THC and oxycodone in his system — was unfair. During the trial, Friedman sided with prosecutors, arguing that the evidence was not relevant to the charges against Sutton and would overly prejudice the jury.

Even after weeks of trial and a resulting conviction, Sutton’s reasons for pursuing Hylton-Brown remain unclear. Sutton did not testify during the trial. At the time of the crash, police said they attempted to stop Hylton-Brown because he was riding a Revel scooter without a helmet. Later, the defense in Sutton’s case argued officers had “reasonable suspicion” Hylton-Brown had a gun or had come to the neighborhood to engage in some kind of violence.

Another hearing is scheduled in District court for early June to continue arguments on the post-conviction motions.