Crime & Safety

Hyattsville Man to Serve 25 Years for Sex Offense Against Greenbelt Minor

DNA evidence aided police in arresting the 31-year-old Hyattsville man.

Kevin Lewis Deleon of Hyattsville, Md. pleaded guilty on Wednesday to a first-degree sex offense committed in 2005 against a then 14-year-old girl in Greenbelt, Md., according to a Greenbelt Police Department press release.

Nearly four years after the offense, DNA evidence led police to Deleon, police said.

One June 25, 2005, the 14-year-old girl had been walking home with her younger brother and sister in the 9200 block of Edmonston Road in Greenbelt. Then, an adult male, whose face was covered, pointed a handgun at the eldest girl and forced her to go with him and perform a sex act on him, according to police.

The victim was unable to identify her attacker since his face had been covered. Without any further leads, police suspended the case. But DNA evidence was found at the crime scene and submitted to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Combined DNA Index System (CODIS).

The Greenbelt Police's criminal investigations unit re-opened the case and investigation after being notified on Dec. 2, 2009, that a CODIS hit on the DNA had identified Deleon, 31, as the suspect responsible for the crime, police said.

Detectives obtained a search warrant for Deleon's DNA to confirm the match and then pressed criminal charges against him for first-degree sex offense, according to police.

After pleading guilty on Wednesday, before the trial began, Deleon was sentenced to 80 years, with all but 25 years suspended.


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