FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va. β The D.C. man accused of carjacking a teen and slamming into a gas pump on Monday was arrested in the District just one week prior, but released. Mecca Lee-Bey, 20, is charged with carjacking and grand larceny in Fairfax County in connection to the carjacking and subsequent crash.
Police said he's accused of stealing about $2,500 worth of merchandise from Tysons Corner Center, before carjacking a teenager and crashing into a gas pump at a Shell station along Leesburg Pike.
Luckily nobody was seriously hurt, but the crash caused severe damage to one of the gas pumps.
WUSA9 has learned that on October 23, Lee-Bey was arrested by the Metropolitan Police Department, and charged with kidnapping, armed robbery (knife), simple assault, unauthorized use of a vehicle, and theft one (stolen auto). According to law enforcement sources, he was released because of a "lack of evidence" in the case.
We have also learned through court documents that the 20 year-old was sentenced to supervised probation this past January. The court documents reveal he was found guilty of two charges, robbery and carrying a pistol without a license. Those charges stem from a 2022 armed carjacking in the 2300 block of Good Hope Road, Southeast.
On Sunday, January 16, 2022, 18 year-old Mecca Lee-Bey Jr. and 21 year-old Michael Taylor, both of Southeast, DC, were arrested and charged with Armed Carjacking, according to the Metropolitan Police Department.
According to court documents, Lee-Bey is accused of opening the front driver's door of the victim's car, pointing a black revolver at the victim and trying to drag him out of the vehicle. It happened around 12:30 a.m., just hours before the two were arrested. Investigators in this case were notified that Taylor, who was on "GPS monitoring", was in the area at the time. Police were able to use that data to track him to the 1000 block of 4th Street NW, where they found the victim's car parked in a parking garage.
After looking through CCTV footage, they were able to track two people leaving the car and going into an apartment building next to the garage.
Around 11:50 a.m., investigators executed a search warrant on the apartment and found several people inside.
Taylor and Lee-Bey were both arrested for armed carjacking, but according to the court documents, "charges were not papered by the U.S. Attorney's Office. Both were released without charges on January 17, 2022."
After collecting more evidence, an arrest warrant was issued for Lee-Bey in June of 2022.
In January of 2023, he was sentenced to 18 months of supervised probation.
It's not clear if last week's arrest was a violation of that probation.
WUSA9 reached out to the U.S. Attorneyβs Office for the District of Columbia Wednesday night to get clarity.
They sent the following statement:
"We cannot comment on specific cases. As a general matter, we will charge at arrest every violent felony where we have sufficient evidence to meet our ethical obligations. Where we donβt have enough evidence, we regularly work with law enforcement to continue to investigate, and will bring charges if we are able to develop sufficient evidence."
As for the charges Lee-Bey faces in Fairfax County, he was scheduled for a bond hearing Wednesday morning. The Commonwealth Attorney's office told WUSA9 that because the victim is a minor, the case is being moved to the Juvenile and Domestic Relations District court, and the bond motion has to be refiled.