Washington Man Receives 54 Months for Federal Hate Crime in Metro Bus Stabbing

A federal judge sentenced Adan Hernandez-Mayoral to 54 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release for a hate crime committed on a Washington Metro bus.

Hernandez-Mayoral used a knife to stab a Black female passenger, causing bodily injury because of her race and color, according to the Justice Department. The June 2, 2026 sentencing concludes a federal prosecution brought under hate-crime statutes that impose enhanced penalties when violent crimes are motivated by the victim’s race.

The scope of the sentence is fixed: 54 months incarceration, three years supervised release, and a judicial finding that the defendant employed a dangerous weapon against a victim selected on the basis of race. Federal hate-crime law applies nationwide and covers incidents on public transit systems such as Metro, which serves roughly 800,000 daily riders in the Washington region.

The sentencing shifts the prior state—pretrial detention or release pending trial—to immediate incarceration. Hernandez-Mayoral must begin serving the 54-month term immediately, with supervised release commencing upon release from prison. The judgment also records the statutory hate-crime enhancement, which will affect future federal sentencing calculations for similar offenses.

Downstream, the conviction adds one completed federal hate-crime prosecution to the department’s annual caseload and requires the Bureau of Prisons to designate a facility for the 54-month term. It obligates the U.S. Probation Office to supervise Hernandez-Mayoral for three years after release, including compliance with any special conditions tied to the hate-crime conviction.

The ruling also supplies precedent that stabbing a stranger on public transit because of race meets the “because of” standard under 18 U.S.C. hate-crime law, lowering the evidentiary bar for prosecutors in comparable future cases.

This is the latest federal hate-crime sentencing in the District of Columbia area involving an unprovoked attack on a transit passenger. The Justice Department has pursued similar charges in other cities when assailants selected victims by race on public transportation systems.