Man Sentenced to 24 Months in Jail After Pleading Guilty to Tampering With, Stealing from Vehicles Parked in Downtown Norfolk Garage in 2024

NORFOLK, Va. — Markus Dominique Williams, 22, was sentenced in September to serve 24 months in jail after pleading guilty to 20 counts of misdemeanor tampering with a vehicle, one count of felony grand larceny, and one count of felony possession of burglarious tools when police caught him stealing from numerous cars parked in a City of Norfolk garage last year.

Between 12:20 a.m. and 12:50 a.m. on Dec. 10, Mr. Williams was inside the downtown York Street Garage tampering with dozens of vehicles and stealing items from inside many of them. Norfolk Police officers were called to the garage, and they saw Mr. Williams wearing a ski mask and running down a stairwell. Mr. Williams was armed with two hatchets at the time, one concealed in his pocket and another in a backpack.

The officers detained Mr. Williams, seized the hatchet from his pocket, searched Mr. Williams’s backpack, and found property he had stolen, including a key fob, a watch, collector coins, tools, and electronics chargers. Mr. Williams was also in possession of gloves and flashlights.

On July 3, Mr. Williams entered an agreement to plead guilty to 20 counts of misdemeanor tampering with a vehicle, one count of felony grand larceny, and one count of felony possession of burglarious tools. Judge David W. Lannetti accepted Mr. Williams’s plea agreement and set his sentencing hearing on Sept. 18. Because Mr. Williams had no prior criminal history, his state sentencing guidelines recommended a sentence of probation and no incarceration.

After hearing the sentencing arguments from the Commonwealth, who asked for a departure from the guidelines and an active sentence of confinement, and the defense, who asked for probation, Judge Lannetti departed from the guidelines and imposed an active sentence of 24 months in jail, plus a suspended sentence of seven years and 228 months on the condition that Mr. Williams complete five years of good behavior and three years of supervised probation after his release. In departing from the guidelines, Judge Lannetti noted Mr. Williams’s “brazen commission of multiple crimes.”

“One single person can cause expense, insecurity, and misery for dozens of people in a single night; that is what Mr. Williams did in breaking into the cars of the victims in this case,” said Commonwealth’s Attorney Ramin Fatehi. “We will continue to work to identify and prosecute the individuals whose criminal activity has a disproportionate impact on the safety and security of their neighbors. Not every crime is the crime of the century, but people who go on a tear like Mr. Williams did will earn themselves a trip to jail.”

Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Wm. Joshua Holder is prosecuting Mr. Williams’s case, and Norfolk Police Officer Cesar A. Kerruish led the investigation.

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