Local
D.C. man found guilty in gay murder
Defendant accused of using chat line to lure ‘faggy’ for robbery
Murder victim Anthony Perkins. (Blade file photo)
A D.C. Superior Court jury Tuesday found a District man guilty of first-degree murder while armed in the December 2009 shooting death of gay D.C. resident Anthony Perkins, whom police say met his killer through a gay telephone chat line.
The jury returned its verdict after deliberating for a little more than five hours following a five-day trial in which prosecutors said Antwan Holcomb, 21, shot Perkins in the head in Perkins’ car after luring him to a secluded street in Southeast Washington.
A witness who knew Holcomb testified that he overheard Holcomb say on the night of the murder that he “shot the ‘faggy’ in the head and robbed him of a pack of Newport cigarettes” before leaving Perkins’ Lincoln Town Car and fleeing the scene on foot.
“The price that the defendant put on the head of Mr. Perkins was a pack of cigarettes,” Assistant United States Attorney Steven Swaney, one of two prosecutors in the case, told the jury on Tuesday.
Chief Judge Lee Satterfield, who presided over the trial, scheduled Holcomb’s sentencing for May 5.
Perkins, 29, lived with his mother, Stella Perkins, who testified at the trial that her son’s murder was a devastating loss. He worked as a dispatcher for an air conditioning and heating company and enjoyed meeting people on phone chat lines, witnesses said during the trial.
Swaney and Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Liebman presented law enforcement witnesses who pointed to phone records showing that Holcomb made repeated calls to a phone chat line called D.C. Raven. The chat line has separate lines for a variety of groups and interests, including a section with “gay chat numbers.”
Government witnesses testified that Holcomb met Perkins on the chat line on the night of Dec. 26, 2009 and engaged him in several conversations. The two exchanged their own phone numbers, the prosecutors said. Authorities later tracked the calls Holcomb made to Perkins on the night of the murder from a landline in a residence at 500 Lebaum St., S.E., where he had been staying.
“He stated that he posed as a homosexual in an attempt to lure a victim to his location for the purpose of robbing him,” according to a police affidavit used for Holcomb’s arrest in March 2010.
At the trial, prosecutors showed the jury a video of Holcomb being questioned by homicide detectives. Holcomb admitted to detectives that he talked to Perkins through the chat line and persuaded him to meet him on the night of the murder. But he denied he killed Perkins. Holcomb told the detectives in the taped interrogation that it was someone else who looked like him that entered Perkins’ car and shot Perkins. Police said Holcomb refused to identify that person.
The two prosecutors argued during the trial Holcomb fabricated that claim to get off the hook in the murder.
In the video recording of the interrogation session presented to the jury, one of the detectives joked with Holcomb about his decision to call a gay-oriented chat line. At one point, Holcomb said men using the chat line have money and likely would not report being robbed from someone they met through such a venue.
“I’m not of that nature … I’m a cold-blooded man,” he told the detectives. “I don’t like fags. I never will.”
At the time of Holcomb’s arraignment following his arrest in March 2010, Liebman told the Blade the U.S. Attorney’s office might consider asking a grand jury to classify the case as a hate crime. A subsequent grand jury indictment against Holcomb did not classify the case as a hate crime.
At the time the jury rendered its verdict Tuesday, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office said Liebman and Swaney would not be immediately available to discuss the case.
Defense attorney Ronald Horton argued that there were no eye witnesses to the murder. He said one of the government’s lead witnesses, who said she saw Holcomb near the scene of the murder, was drunk at the time.
Horton said another key witness, a woman who once dated Horton, was biased against him because she caught him in bed with another woman. She should not be taken at her word for testifying that Holcomb entered her bedroom and placed a gun under the bed shortly after the murder took place, he told the jury.
He noted that Holcomb’s finger prints and DNA were not found inside Perkins’ car, supporting Holcomb’s claim that it was someone else that entered Perkins’ Lincoln Town Car and shot him point blank in the head.
Saying the jury was obligated under the law not to find Holcomb guilty unless the government proves its case beyond a reasonable doubt, told the jury, “This case is full of reasonable doubt.”
In his rebuttal arguments, co-prosecutor Swaney recited a litany of evidence he said provided proof beyond a doubt that Holcomb committed the murder.
Among other things, he pointed to Holcomb’s arrest for an unrelated incident on Dec. 12, in which he was charged with shooting two men outside the Player’s Lounge, a popular Southeast D.C. nightclub that has hosted events organized by gay activists.
Swaney pointed to police and firearm experts’ testimony that the bullet removed from Perkins’ head had been fired from the same gun that Holcomb allegedly used to shoot the two men outside the Player’s Lounge, one of whom is paralyzed from the waist down as a result of the gunshot wound.
Several letters that Holcomb wrote to a female friend while in jail following his arrest asked the friend to arrange for others to tell police that they saw someone other than Holcomb enter Perkins’ car on the night of the murder, Swaney noted to the jury. He called this a clear attempt by Holcomb to get people to help him conceal his involvement in a murder.
In addition to the first-degree murder charge, the jury found Holcomb guilty of armed robbery, unlawful possession of a firearm, and carrying a pistol without a license.
The D.C. group Gays and Lesbians Opposing Violence has raised concern over reports of gay men being targeted by criminals on telephone and Internet chat lines.
A widely reported case came four months after Perkins’ murder, when Montgomery County police disclosed that gay D.C. middle school principal Brian Betts, who was found murdered in his Silver Spring, Md., home last April, met one or more of the four teenage males charged in the case through an Internet sex chat line.
District of Columbia
D.C. pays $500,000 to settle lawsuit brought by gay Corrections Dept. employee
Alleged years of verbal harassment, slurs, intimidation
The D.C. government on Feb. 5 agreed to pay $500,000 to a gay D.C. Department of Corrections officer as a settlement to a lawsuit the officer filed in 2021 alleging he was subjected to years of discrimination at his job because of his sexual orientation, according to a statement released by the American Civil Liberties Union of D.C.
The statement says the lawsuit, filed on behalf of Sgt. Deon Jones by the ACLU of D.C. and the law firm WilmerHale, alleged that the Department of Corrections, including supervisors and co-workers, “subjected Sgt. Jones to discrimination, retaliation, and a hostile work environment because of his identity as a gay man, in violation of the D.C. Human Rights Act.”
Daniel Gleick, a spokesperson for D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, said the mayor’s office would have no comment on the lawsuit settlement. The Washington Blade couldn’t immediately reach a spokesperson for the Office of the D.C. Attorney General, which represents the city against lawsuits.
Bowser and her high-level D.C. government appointees, including Japer Bowles, director of the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs, have spoken out against LGBTQ-related discrimination.
“Jones, now a 28-year veteran of the Department and nearing retirement, faced years of verbal abuse and harassment from coworkers and incarcerated people alike, including anti-gay slurs, threats, and degrading treatment,” the ACLU’s statement says.
“The prolonged mistreatment took a severe toll on Jones’s mental health, and he experienced depression, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and 15 anxiety attacks in 2021 alone,” it says.
“For years, I showed up to do my job with professionalism and pride, only to be targeted because of who I am,” Jones says in the ACLU statement. “This settlement affirms that my pain mattered – and that creating hostile workplaces has real consequences,” he said.
He added, “For anyone who is LGBTQ or living with a disability and facing workplace discrimination or retaliation, know this: you are not powerless. You have rights. And when you stand up, you can achieve justice.”
The settlement agreement, a link to which the ACLU provided in its statement announcing the settlement, states that plaintiff Jones agrees, among other things, that “neither the Parties’ agreement, nor the District’s offer to settle the case, shall in any way be construed as an admission by the District that it or any of its current or former employees, acted wrongfully with respect to Plaintiff or any other person, or that Plaintiff has any rights.”
Scott Michelman, the D.C. ACLU’s legal director said that type of disclaimer is typical for parties that agree to settle a lawsuit like this.
“But actions speak louder than words,” he told the Blade. “The fact that they are paying our client a half million dollars for the pervasive and really brutal harassment that he suffered on the basis of his identity for years is much more telling than their disclaimer itself,” he said.
The settlement agreement also says Jones would be required, as a condition for accepting the agreement, to resign permanently from his job at the Department of Corrections. Michelman said Jones has been on leave from work for a period of time, but he did not know how long. Jones couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
“This is really something that makes sense on both sides,” Michelman said of the resignation requirements. “The environment had become so toxic the way he had been treated on multiple levels made it difficult to see how he could return to work there.”
Virginia
Spanberger signs bill that paves way for marriage amendment repeal referendum
Proposal passed in two successive General Assembly sessions
Virginians this year will vote on whether to repeal a state constitutional amendment that defines marriage as between a man and a woman.
Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger on Friday signed state Del. Laura Jane Cohen (D-Fairfax County)’s House Bill 612, which finalized the referendum’s language.
The ballot question that voters will consider on Election Day is below:
Question: Should the Constitution of Virginia be amended to: (i) remove the ban on same-sex marriage; (ii) affirm that two adults may marry regardless of sex, gender, or race; and (iii) require all legally valid marriages to be treated equally under the law?
Voters in 2006 approved the Marshall-Newman Amendment.
Same-sex couples have been able to legally marry in Virginia since 2014. Former Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who is a Republican, in 2024 signed a bill that codified marriage equality in state law.
Two successive legislatures must approve a proposed constitutional amendment before it can go to the ballot.
A resolution to repeal the Marshall-Newman Amendment passed in the General Assembly in 2025. Lawmakers once again approved it last month.
“20 years after Virginia added a ban on same-sex marriage to our Constitution, we finally have the chance to right that wrong,” wrote Equality Virginia Executive Director Narissa Rahaman on Friday in a message to her group’s supporters.
Virginians this year will also consider proposed constitutional amendments that would guarantee reproductive rights and restore voting rights to convicted felons who have completed their sentences.
District of Columbia
D.C. non-profits find creative ways to aid the unhoused amid funding cuts
City’s poor economic mobility makes it easier to slip into homelessness
Homelessness is unlikely to disappear entirely, but it can be minimized and controlled.
That principle guides Everyone Home Executive Director Karen Cunningham’s approach to homeless support and prevention in D.C.
“There’s always going to be some amount of people who have a crisis,” Cunningham said. “The goal is that if they become homeless, [it’s] rare, brief and non-recurring. And in order for that to be the case, we need to have steady investments in programs that we know work over time.”
Making those investments has proven to be an unprecedented challenge, however. Cunningham said non-profits and other organizations like Everyone Home are grappling with government funding cuts or stalls that threaten the work they do to support D.C.’s homeless population.
Despite a 9% decrease in homelessness from 2024 to 2025, advocates worry that stagnant funding will make that progress hard to sustain. Furthermore, D.C. has the worst unemployment rate in the country at 6.7% as of December. The city’s poor economic mobility makes it easier for people to slip into homelessness and harder to break free of it.
There’s a way forward, Cunningham said, but it’s going to take a lot of perseverance and creative solutions from those willing to stay in the fight.
Fighting through setbacks
Reduced funding from the city government has shifted the way Everyone Home operates.
In D.C.’s fiscal year 2026 budget proposal, homeless services and prevention programs saw stalled growth or financial reductions. Even just a few years ago, Cunningham said Everyone Home received a large influx of vouchers to help people who needed long-term supportive housing. The vouchers allowed the non-profit to break people free of the homeless cycle and secure stable housing.
However, those vouchers are scarce these days. Cunningham said the city is investing less in multi-year programs and more in programs that offer preventative and upfront support.
She said this reality has forced Everyone Home to stop operating its Family Rapid Rehab program, which helps families leave shelters and transition into permanent housing. Current funds couldn’t withstand the size of the program and Cunningham said very few organizations can still afford to run similar programs.
The Family Homelessness Prevention program, however, is thriving and expanding at Everyone Home due to its short-term nature. It provides families with 90-day support services to help them get back on track and secure stable finances and housing.
Everyone Home also offers a drop-in day center, where they provide people with emergency clothing, laundry, and meals, and has a street outreach team to support those who are chronically homeless and offer services to them.
Inconsistencies in financial support have created challenges in providing the necessary resources to those struggling. It’s led non-profits like Everyone Home to get creative with their solutions to ensuring no one has recurring or long spouts of homelessness.
“It’s really a sustained investment in these programs and services that can allow us to chip away, because if you put all these resources in and then take your foot off the gas, there’s always people entering the system,” Cunningham said. “And so we have to always be moving people out into housing.”
Getting people in and out of the homeless system isn’t easy due to D.C.’s struggle with providing accessible and affordable housing, D.C. Policy Center executive director Yesim Sayin said in a Nov. 16 Washington Blade article.
Sayin said that D.C.’s construction tailors to middle or upper class people who live in the city because work brought them there, but it excludes families and D.C. natives who may be on the verge of homelessness and have less geographic mobility.
Building more and building smarter ensures D.C.’s low-income population aren’t left behind and at risk of becoming homeless, Sayin said.
That risk is a common one in D.C. given its low economic mobility. Residents have less room to financially grow given the city’s high cost of living, making vulnerable communities more prone to homelessness.
With funding cuts for long-term programs, preventative programs have proven to be vital in supporting the homeless population. When someone becomes homeless, it can have a snowball effect on their life. They aren’t just losing a house –– they may lose their job, access to reliable transportation and food for their family.
Cunningham said resources like the Family Homelessness Prevention program allows people to grow and stabilize before losing crucial life resources.
“Helping people keep what they have and to try to grow that as much as possible is really important where there aren’t a lot of opportunities…for people to increase their income,” Cunningham said.
Through all the funding cuts and reduced services, D.C.’s homeless support organizations are still finding a path forward –– a path that many residents and families rely on to survive.
Pushing forward
Local non-profits and organizations like Everyone Home are the backbone of homeless support when all other systems fail.
When the White House issued an executive order directing agencies to remove homeless encampments on federal land, Coalition For The Homeless provided ongoing shelter to those impacted.
“We were asked by our funders to open two shelters at the time of the encampment policy announcement,” Lucho Vásquez, executive director of Coalition For The Homeless, said. “We opened the shelters on the same day of the request and have been housing 100 more people who are unhoused each night since August.”
This was achieved even after Coalition faced “severe cuts in funding for supportive and security services,” according to Vásquez. Staff members have taken on additional responsibilities to make up for the loss in security coverage and supportive services with no increase in pay, but Vásquez said they’re still trying to fill gaps left by the cuts.
Coalition offers free transitional housing, single room occupancy units and affordable apartments to people who were unhoused.
Coalition For The Homeless isn’t the only non-profit that’s had to step up its services amid dwindling resources. Thrive D.C. provides hot meals, showers, and winter clothes, which is especially important during the winter months.
Pathways to Housing D.C. offers housing services for people regardless of their situation or condition. Its “Housing First” teams house people directly from the streets, and then evaluate their mental and physical health, employment, addiction status, and education challenges to try to integrate them back into the community.
Covenant House is a homeless shelter for youth ages 18-24. They provide resources and shelter for youth “while empowering young people in their journey to independence and stability,” its website reads. Through its variety of programs, Friendship Place ended or prevented homelessness, found employment and provided life-changing services for more than 5,400 people.
These groups have made a huge local difference with little resources, but Cunningham said there are more ways for people to support those experiencing homelessness if they’re strapped for time or money. Aside from donating and volunteering, she said even simply showing compassion toward people who are struggling can go a long way.
Cunningham said compassion is something that’s been lost in the mainstream, with politicians and news anchors regularly directing hostile rhetoric toward homeless populations. But now more than ever, she said caring and understanding for fellow community members is key to moving forward and lifting those in need up.
“People sometimes feel invisible or that there’s a sense of hostility,” Cunningham said. “I think all of us can at least do that piece of recognizing people’s humanity.”
(This article is part of a national initiative exploring how geography, policy, and local conditions influence access to opportunity. Find more stories at economicopportunitylab.com.)
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