Local
Gov’t seeks 45-year prison term for FRC shooter
LGBT Center surfaces in FBI interrogation of Corkins
Floyd Lee Corkins — who pled guilty to three felony charges in February — volunteered at D.C.’s LGBT community center. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
UPDATE:
At a court status hearing on Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Roberts rescheduled Corkins’ sentencing hearing for July 15. He also reaffirmed his denial of bail for Corkins, who has been in jail since the time of his arrest last August.
Hours before his arrest last August for shooting a security guard in the arm in the lobby of the anti-gay Family Research Council (FRC) headquarters in downtown Washington, Herndon, Va., resident Floyd Lee Corkins II, 28, says he told his parents he needed to use their car to drive to the D.C. LGBT Community Center, where he said he worked as a volunteer.
According to a 22-page transcript of an FBI interview of Corkins on the day of his arrest on Aug. 15, 2012 — which prosecutors released in a court filing last week — Corkins told FBI agents that instead of going to the LGBT Center he drove the family car to the East Falls Church Metro station.
From there he said he took the Metro to the Gallery Place station and walked to the FRC building at 801 G St., N.W., with the intention of killing as many people as possible.
“I wanted to kill the people in the building and smear a Chicken-fil-A sandwich on their face,” the FBI transcript quotes Corkins as saying.
Police and prosecutors said the heroic action by the unarmed security guard, who wrestled Corkins to the floor and took away the gun after being shot in the arm, prevented Corkins from reaching the upper floors of the FRC building where at least 50 employees were working at their desks.
Corkins pleaded guilty in February to three felony charges, including committing an act of terrorism while armed, assault with intent to kill while armed, and interstate transportation of a firearm and ammunition. He faces a possible maximum sentence of 70 years in prison.
He had been scheduled to be sentenced Monday, April 29. But U.S. District Court Judge Richard W. Roberts agreed on April 22 to a request by Corkins’ attorney to postpone the sentencing to give the attorney, David W. Bos, more time to review the status of Corkins’ mental health.
Citing information not previously disclosed, Bos stated in a motion seeking the postponement that Corkins had been the subject of a “72-hour civil commitment in February 2012, which led to the mental health treatment the defendant was receiving at the time he committed the instant offense.”
In his interview with the FBI agents, Corkins hedged about whether he was committed or entered a treatment facility voluntarily, but said the treatment took place during a time when he was living in San Francisco.
“… I went to seek help and I got charged with a 51-50,” he said.
“What’s a 51-50?” one of the FBI agents asked him.
“It’s if they think you are a danger to yourself or to others,” Corkins replied.
Corkins said he left San Francisco and moved back to his parents’ home in Herndon around April of 2012.
The fact that he purchased a handgun and large quantities of ammunition from a Virginia gun store in August just six months after being committed for a mental health condition linked to possible danger to others comes at a time when President Obama and gun control opponents continue to argue over legislation aimed at requiring stricter background checks for gun purchasers.
In what appears to be a calm, matter-of-fact discussion, Corkins told two FBI agents who conducted the interview that he disagreed with the FRC’s anti-gay positions, including its statement of support for the Chick-fil-A restaurant president, who said he opposes same-sex marriage.
Corkins said in the interview that he bought 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches one day earlier, the same day he practiced shooting his recently purchased revolver at a gun range in Chantilly, Va. He said he carried the gun, three magazines with 15 rounds of ammunition each, and the sandwiches in the backpack he brought to the FRC building.
“I consider myself a political activist,” he told the FBI agents. “[S]o I was going to use that as kind of a statement,” he said of his plans to smear the sandwiches in the faces of the people he planned to shoot.
Corkins mentioned his affiliation with the LGBT Center at the beginning of his FBI interrogation.
“Were you home when you got up in the morning today?” one of the agents asked Corkins.
“Yeah, I was at home,” he replied.
“Just walk us through when you got up,” the transcript quotes the agent as saying.
“Uh, let’s see. I got up in the morning,” Corkins replied. “I told my parents, I volunteer at the D.C. Center, the LGBT center. So I told my parents I was going down there today and that I needed the car,” he told the FBI agents.
“The night before I had loaded three magazines full of bullets, I planned on going down to the [FRC] building … ,” Corkins told the agents.
At the time of the FRC shooting, officials with the D.C. LGBT Center said Corkins volunteered there as a front desk clerk in 2011. Center officials joined local and national LGBT leaders in condemning Corkins’ actions, saying they support his prosecution to the fullest extent of the law.
Center officials said at the time that Corkins showed no signs that he could be capable of committing an act of violence but gave no further details of Corkins’ relationship with the Center other than that he was a part-time volunteer.
D.C. Center Executive Director David Mariner told the Blade early Monday that the Center would have no further comment on the matter other than the statement Mariner issued last August at the time of the FRC shooting incident.
“I was shocked to hear that someone who has volunteered with the D.C. Center could be the cause of such a tragic act of violence,” Mariner said in that statement. “No matter the circumstances, we condemn such violence in the strongest terms possible. We hope for a full and speedy recovery for the victim and our thoughts are with him and his family.”
The Office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, which is prosecuting the case, submitted the FBI interview transcript as one of several exhibits attached to a 32-page sentencing memorandum filed in court on April 19.
The U.S. Attorney’s office also submitted as an exhibit a full video of the FBI interview with Corkins. The video became part of the public court record and is available for viewing and copying on the federal court system’s website.
The Family Research Council promptly posted an excerpt of the video on its own website that shows Corkins telling the FBI agents he selected the FRC as a target after seeing it listed as a “hate group” on the website of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a national civil rights organization.
In an April 25 press release, FRC President Tony Perkins called the SPLC’s decision to list FRC as a hate group a “reckless labeling [that] has led to devastating consequences.”
Added Perkins, “Because of its ‘hate group’ labeling, a deadly terrorist had a guide map to FRC and other organizations. Our team is still dealing with the fallout of the attack that was intended to have a chilling effect on organizations that are simply fighting for their values.”
SPLC has said it lists FRC as a hate group based, among other things, on what it says are FRC’s false and defamatory claims linking homosexuality and LGBT people to pedophilia. SPLC officials have criticized Perkins for misrepresenting their position, saying they never label an organization as a hate group based on its political views or public policy positions.
The sentencing memorandum outlines the government’s reasons for asking Judge Roberts to sentence Corkins to 45 years in prison.
“The defendant, the lone gunman and perpetrator of this attempted massacre, had the malicious intent and engaged in the requisite planning and effort necessary to achieve his purpose,” the memo says. “Fortunately, he was thwarted by the heroic intervening actions of Leonardo Johnson, a building manager/security guard who was seriously injured as a result.”
Johnson, who was unarmed, is credited with tackling Corkins seconds after Corkins pulled out a 9mm handgun from a backpack he was carrying and pointing it at Johnson. Johnson sustained a gunshot wound to the arm as he wrestled Corkins to the floor of the lobby of the FRC building and took possession of the gun.
D.C. police arrived on the scene minutes later and arrested Corkins. The FBI also became involved in the case.
D.C. police and the FBI said Corkins told authorities that had he gotten past Johnson, he would have taken the elevator to the building’s upper floors and opened fire on the 50 or more FRC employees working that day.
“The defendant’s crimes are serious and warrant severe sentences – not only to punish the defendant for his actions, but to keep the community safe from him and deter other would-be mass murderers and domestic terrorists from following suit,” the sentencing memo says.
“Accordingly, the government respectfully requests that the Court sentence the defendant to a combined term of imprisonment of 45 years,” the memo says.
A new sentencing date was expected to be announced at the status hearing scheduled for 11 a.m. Monday.
In his motion seeking the postponement of the sentencing hearing, defense attorney Bos said the state of Corkins’ mental health should be taken into consideration in the sentencing process.
“While counsel believes the defendant’s mental health history does not bear on the defendant’s competency to proceed in this matter, counsel believes the defendant’s mental health history is relevant to the appropriate sentence in this case.”
Floyd Lee Corkins II (Photo courtesy the U.S. Attorney’s Office)
The Comings & Goings column is about sharing the professional successes of our community. We want to recognize those landing new jobs, new clients for their business, joining boards of organizations and other achievements. Please share your successes with us at [email protected].
Congratulations to RODRIGO HENG-LEHTINEN on his new role as Trevor Project Senior Vice President of Public Engagement Campaigns. On accepting the position, he said, “My mission has long been to stop LGBTQ, and especially trans, people from being perceived as political footballs and start getting us seen as real people – your friends, your families, your neighbors. Now I get to focus on that 100% at The Trevor Project.”
Prior to this, he was executive director, Advocates for Trans Equality (A4TE), where he co-led the merger of two national transgender rights organizations, NCTE and TDLEF, to create the new organization. He had served as executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, leading that organization through a period of growth, restoring organizational size and stability. He had served as deputy executive director prior to that. Previously he served as vice president of Public Education, Freedom for All Americans, where he led a successful campaign for transgender nondiscrimination protections in New Hampshire. He oversaw a full range of legislative lobbying, field organizing, and communications strategies and oganized a leadership coalition, established structure, and divided roles for key committees of 17 state and national partner organizations and local activists.
Heng-Lehtinen conducted English-language interviews with outlets such as The New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, and Politico. He planned a Transgender Leadership Summit for the Transgender Law Center and served as Development & Donor Services Assistant, Liberty Hill Foundation. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Latin American Studies from Brown University.
Local
D.C., Va., Md. to commemorate World AIDS Day
Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle will hold a Mass, candlelight prayer vigil
The D.C. area will observe World AIDS Day on Dec. 1 through a variety of community events.
Established by the World Health Organization in 1988, World AIDS Day aims to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS and honor the individuals affected by the epidemic. The global theme for 2025 is “overcoming disruption, transforming the AIDS response.”
Washington
DC Health will host a World AIDS Day event at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Library from noon to 9 p.m on Dec. 1. Attendees can expect live performances, free food and free HIV testing.
The all-day event will also feature community resources from DC Health, DC Public Library, DC Health Link, Serve DC, and the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs.
The Lily and Earle M. Pilgrim Art Foundation is partnering with Visual AIDS, a New York-based non-profit that uses art to fight AIDS, to reflect on World AIDS Day with a film screening on Dec. 1.
The David Bethuel Jamieson Studio House at Walbridge in Mount Pleasant will premiere “Meet Us Where We’re At,” an hour-long collection of six videos. The free screening highlights the complexity of drug use in intersection with the global HIV epidemic.
The videos, commissioned by artists in Brazil, Germany, Nigeria, Puerto Rico and Vietnam, showcase the firsthand experience of drug users, harm reduction programs, and personal narratives. The program intends to showcase drug users as key individuals in the global response to HIV.
In addition to streaming the videos, the event will include an evening potluck and conversation led by Peter Stebbins from 6-8 p.m.
The Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle will hold a 5:30 p.m. Mass and candlelight prayer vigil at 6 p.m. in honor of World AIDS Day on Dec. 1. The event is open to all and includes a subsequent reception at 6:30 p.m.
The Capital Jewish Museum is hosting a speaker series on Dec. 2 from 6:30-8 p.m. that explores the response to AIDS within the Jewish community. Speakers include LGBTQ psychiatrist Jeffrey Akman, physician assistant Barbara Lewis and Larry Neff, lay service leader at Bet Mishpachah, a synagogue founded by LGBTQ Washingtonians. Heather Alt, deputy director of nursing at Whitman-Walker Health, will moderate the event.
The program is free for museum members. General admission is $10 and Chai tickets, which help subsidize the cost of general admission, are $18. Tickets include access to LGBT Jews in the Federal City, a temporary exhibition that collectively explores Washington, Judaism, and LGBTQ history. The exhibition is on view through Jan. 4, 2026.
Virginia
Alexandria Mayor Alyia Gaskins and local residents will commemorate World AIDS Day on Dec. 1 at the Lee Center.
The event, which is free to attend, will include music, choir performances, educational moments and more. The commemoration will be held from 6:30-8:30 p.m.
Maryland
The Frederick Center will host talks, tabling and a raffle in honor of World AIDS Day. The Frederick County Health Department will conduct free HIV testing.
The event, which is free to attend, will be held on Nov. 30 from 1-4 p.m. The Frederick County Health Department always offers free, walk-in HIV testing on Tuesdays and Fridays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
The Prince George’s County Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority will host a community day of awareness in honor of World AIDS Day on Dec. 6 from 1 a.m. to 2 p.m. The free event will feature free, confidential HIV testing, private talks with medical professionals and health workshops.
The event will be held at Suitland Community Center in Forestville and will include breakfast and snacks.
Damien Ministries is commemorating World AIDS Day on Dec. 1 through the grand opening of the We the People Community & Wellness Collaborative. The event, held at 11:30 a.m. at 4061 Minnesota Avenue, N.E., is free to attend.
Damien Ministries is a faith-based non-profit committed to supporting those with HIV/AIDS.
Begin Anew, a Baltimore non-profit that provides education, outreach and resources to improve public health, wellness and economic stability, is hosting its 4th Annual World AIDS Day Community Celebration on Dec. 1 alongside community partners.
Hosted at the University of Maryland BioPark from noon to 3 p.m., the program will feature keynote speaker Jason E. Farley of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. The celebration will also dedicate awards to local heroes focused on fighting HIV/AIDS and promoting health equity.
The free event includes lunch, live entertainment and networking opportunities with health advocates and partners.
District of Columbia
Bowser announces she will not seek fourth term as mayor
‘It has been the honor of my life to be your mayor’
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, a longtime vocal supporter of the LGBTQ community, announced on Nov. 25 that she will not run for a fourth term.
Since first taking office as mayor in January 2015, Bowser has been an outspoken supporter on a wide range of LGBTQ related issues, including marriage equality and services for LGBTQ youth and seniors.
Local LGBTQ advocates have also praised Bowser for playing a leading role in arranging for widespread city support in the city’s role as host for World Pride 2025 in May and June, when dozens of LGBTQ events took place throughout the city.
She has also been credited with expanding the size and funding for the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs, which was put in place as a Cabinet level office by the D.C. Council in 2006 under the administration of then-Mayor Anthony Williams.
It was initially called the Office of Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Affairs. At Bowser’s request, the D.C. Council in 2016 agreed to change the name as part of the fiscal year 2016 budget bill to the Office of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning Affairs.
As she has in numerous past appearances at LGBTQ events, Bowser last month greeted the thousands of people who attended the annual LGBTQ Halloween 17th Street High Heel Race from a stage by shouting that D.C. is the “gayest city in the world.”
In a statement released after she announced she would not run for a fourth term in office; Bowser reflected on her years as mayor.
“It has been the honor of my life to be your mayor,” she said. “When you placed your trust in me 10 years ago, you gave me an extraordinary opportunity to have a positive impact on my hometown,” her statement continues.
“Together, you and I have built a legacy of success of which I am immensely proud. My term will end on Jan. 2, 2027. But until then, let’s run through the tape and keep winning for D.C,” her statement concludes.
Among the LGBTQ advocates commenting on Bowser’s decision not to run again for mayor was Howard Garrett, president of D.C.’s Capital Stonewall Democrats, one of the city’s largest local LGBTQ political groups.
“I will say from a personal capacity that Mayor Bowser has been very supportive of the LGBTQ community,” Garrett told the Washington Blade. “I think she has done a great job with ensuring that our community has been protected and making sure we have the resources needed to be protected when it comes to housing, public safety and other areas.”
Garrett also praised Bowser’s appointment of LGBTQ advocate Japer Bowles as director of the Office of LGBTQ Affairs,
“Under the leadership of the mayor, Japer has done a fantastic job in ensuring that we have what we need and other organizations have what they need to prosper,” Garrett said.
Cesar Toledo, executive director of the D.C. based Wanda Alston Foundation, which provides housing services for homeless LGBTQ youth, credits Bowser with transforming the Office of LGBTQ Affairs “into the largest and most influential community affairs agency of its kind in the nation, annually investing more than $1 million into life-saving programs.”
Toledo added, “Because of the consistent support of Mayor Bowser and her administration, the Wanda Alston Foundation has strengthened and expanded its housing and counseling programs, ensuring that more at-risk queer and trans youth receive the safety, stability, and life-saving care they deserve.”
Gay Democratic activist Peter Rosenstein is among those who have said they have mixed reactions to Bowser’s decision not to run again.
“I am sorry for the city but happy for her that she will now be able to focus on her family, and her incredible daughter,” Rosenstein said.
“She has worked hard, and done great things for D.C,” Rosenstein added. “Those include being a stalwart supporter of the LGBTQ community, working to rebuild our schools, recreation centers, libraries, gaining the RFK site for the city, and maintaining home rule. She will be a very hard act to follow.”
Local gay activist David Hoffman is among those in the city who have criticized Bowser for not taking a stronger and more vocal position critical of President Donald Trump on a wide range of issues, including Trump’s deployment of National Guard soldiers to patrol D.C. streets. Prior to Bowser’s announcement that she is not running again for mayor, Hoffman said he would not support Bowser’s re-election and would urge the LGBTQ community to support another candidate for mayor.
Bowser supporters have argued that Bowser’s interactions with the Trump-Vance administration, including her caution about denouncing the president, were based on her and other city officials’ desire to protect the interests of D.C. and D.C.’s home rule government. They point out that Trump supporters, including Republican members of Congress, have called on Trump to curtail or even end D.C. home rule.
Most political observers are predicting a highly competitive race among a sizable number of candidates expected to run for mayor in the 2026 D.C. election. Two D.C. Council members have said they were considering a run for mayor before Bowser’s withdrawal.
They include Councilmember Janeese Lewis George (D-Ward 4), who identifies as a democratic socialist, and Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie (I-At-Large), who is considered a political moderate supportive of community-based businesses. Both have expressed strong support for the LGBTQ community.
The Washington Post reports that Bowser declined to say in an interview whether she will endorse a candidate to succeed her or what she plans to do after she leaves office as mayor.
Among her reasons for not running again, she told the Post, was “we’ve accomplished what we set out to accomplish.”
Comings & Goings
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