DC Superior Court Judge Rainey Brandt sentenced Spiro Stafilatos, 39, on June 25 to 35 years of imprisonment for a car crash that killed one pedestrian and injured another.
A jury convicted Stafilatos on May 6 of second-degree murder, aggravated assault with a known grave risk while armed, and fleeing a law enforcement officer for the incident that occurred on Dec. 30, 2022 at the intersection of 14th Street and New York Avenue, NW. Shuyu (Sophie) Sui, 31, was killed, and her wife was critically injured.
Before reading her sentence, Judge Brandt emphasized that the root cause of the incident was that Stafilatos drove while under the influence of drugs. She also said that intent didn’t matter for the charges he faced, as “Stafilatos made multiple bad decisions” that disregarded the safety of those around him.
Stafilatos maintained that his mental health struggles needed to be taken into account to mitigate his sentence.
In 2020, Stafilatos was beaten by the Montgomery County Police Department, a video of which was shown in trial. Stafilatos testified to the jury he has post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which instilled a fear of law enforcement and led to the crash two years later. His PTSD was confirmed by two experts from both the defense and prosecution. Before the crash, Stafilatos had been fleeing United States Secret Service officers on bikes who saw that his car was not registered and conducted a traffic stop.
The prosecution argued at his sentencing that Stafilatos has a long criminal history, including an armed robbery that he was on probation for at the time of the crash, and was willing to put every nearby pedestrian in danger that day.
The prosecutor asked for 45 years of imprisonment, which Stafilatos’ attorney, Brian McDaniel, called “tantamount to a life sentence” for his client. McDaniel asked for a sentence of 15 years.
During the hearing, Sui’s uncle spoke and a victim witness coordinator read a statement on behalf of Sui’s mother.
The family members chronicled Sui’s immigration to the US from China as well as her successful academic and professional career. Sui’s mother said, at the time of her death, Sui’s life was at its “prime.”
“She was all the focus of our lives and all our hopes for the future,” Sui’s mother’s statement read.
The victim’s mother wrote that her husband, Sui’s father, was consumed by grief after his only daughter’s death, which caused his physical and mental health to decline. He died last year, she wrote.
Stafilatos’ sister also made a statement to the court. She detailed his difficult childhood and lack of necessary mental health intervention.
“There is another part of him that we don’t see on record,” Stafilatos’ sister said as she explained his family-oriented attitude.
Stafilatos apologized to Sui’s family and said, “I’m a family person, and I know how y’all feel to lose somebody.” He invited them to visit him in prison to talk, and repeated that he never intended to harm anyone.
Throughout the hearing, Stafilatos and McDaniel claimed that another car clipped Stafilatos’ during the incident, which caused his car to slide into the intersection. Judge Brandt called this an example of Stafilatos’ refusal to take accountability for his decisions.
Judge Brandt said she would make a request to the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BoP) that Stafilatos be sent to a facility with the Life Connections Program, an multi-faith residential program that focuses on reducing recidivism, which Stafilatos requested himself.
Judge Brandt sentenced Stafilatos to 20 years in prison for murder, 15 years for assault, and two concurrent years for fleeing. The sentence will be followed by five years of supervised release and Stafilatos is legally not allowed to drive.
Stafilatos and McDaniel may file an appeal within 30 days of the sentencing. At the end of the hearing, Stafilatos verbally expressed his desire to appeal.
No further hearings were scheduled.
