Misdemeanor Conviction In Diamond Theft Case

Published on 10/09/09

For a little more than a week, Courtroom 313 in D.C. Superior Court was adorned with bling: a couple of diamond-studded gold wedding bands, a white-gold bracelet with a 2.5-carat diamond and various uncut stones.

The event was the third time the U.S. attorney's office was trying to send Louis H. Martin, 46, to prison on charges that stemmed from his startling 2006 arrest.

It was then, after he crashed his pickup into a traffic light in Southwest Washington, that police found in his possession a handgun, drugs and $38,000 in diamonds stolen from one of the region's best-known jewelers.

Prosecutors were again doomed to disappointment.

When Martin, of Clinton, was arrested, he was wearing the diamond and gold bracelet and had the two diamond wedding bands sewn into the lining of his jacket, prosecutors said. Martin was also charged with resisting arrest, they said, because at the time of his arrest, he refused to open his hand to be handcuffed because he was holding nine uncut diamonds.

The diamonds, prosecutors said, were from a brazen July 2006 robbery of the Mervis Diamond Importers store in the 1700 block of K Street NW.