Judge Sentences Defendant to Serve 20 Years for Murder at DMV Recording Studio in Woodbridge

         On April 19, 2023, Prince William County Commonwealth Attorney Amy Ashworth announced the successful prosecution of Cinquan Louis Blakney.  On April 13, 2023, Blakney, 47 years of age, entered an Alford plea of No Contest to the charge of Second-Degree Murder before the Honorable James A. Willett and was sentenced to forty years of incarceration with twenty years suspended and five years of supervised probation upon release.   

         This conviction stemmed from a shooting that occurred on the night of November 18, 2019, at the DMV Recording Studio in Woodbridge, Virginia.  The victim, Tristan Sellers, 32 years of age, was shot nine times at close range by the Defendant after a verbal argument over the production of a music track.  The victim was unarmed and was pronounced by paramedics on the scene.  An autopsy confirmed that the cause of death was multiple gunshot wounds and that the manner of death was a homicide.    

            After an extensive investigation by the Prince William County Police Department, detectives were able to identify the accused as Cinquan Louis Blakney and he was taken into custody in Maryland without incident with help from the United States Marshall’s Task Force as well as the Greenbelt Police Department.  

            Commonwealth’s Attorney Ashworth released the following statement: “Violent crime has no place in our community and will be prosecuted vigorously.  We express our deepest condolences to the victim’s family.”  

            The case was prosecuted by Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Katie Pavluchuk and Senior Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Alex Brandler.  The Office of the Commonwealth’s Attorney would like to commend the Prince William County Police Department and Violent Crimes Detectives Daniel Sekely and Daniel Downey for their investigation of the case as well as Tamara Thomas, Director of the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Victim/Witness Program, and Arturo Guzman, Victim/Witness advocate, for the assistance they provided the victim’s family.      

Amy Ashworth is the elected Commonwealth's Attorney for Prince William County and the Cities of Manassas and Manassas Park. She was elected in November 2019. The Commonwealth Attorney’s Office can be reached from 8:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. every business day by phone at 703-792-6050 or email at cwoffice@pwcgov.org.