David DePape sentenced to 30 years in Paul Pelosi hammer attack

A federal choose on Friday sentenced David DePape to 30 years in jail, six months after a jury found him guilty of making an attempt to kidnap former U.S. Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi and utilizing a hammer to bludgeon her husband in a bloody October 2022 assault.

Choose Jacqueline Scott Corley delivered her resolution throughout a listening to on the U.S. District Courtroom for the Northern District of California, reprimanding DePape at size and saying she believed he continued to pose a hazard to the general public and “all Individuals.”

“He broke into the house of that public official, he broke into that non-public house of house and violently attacked a public official’s partner,” Scott Corley mentioned. “What meaning and why this now could be so dangerous to everybody within the nation and the longer term, is that when somebody is contemplating now whether or not they wish to go into public service, they need to assume not solely am I prepared to take that danger myself, however am I prepared to danger my partner, my youngsters, my grandchildren.”

DePape, wearing an orange jail sweatsuit and carrying ankle restraints, didn’t outwardly react as his sentence was learn.

The sentencing caps a federal trial that captivated the nation and raised chilling questions concerning the safety of public officials amid heightened political extremism and the proliferation of on-line venues that give traction to baseless fanatical conspiracy theories.

In letters to the choose that their daughter, Christine Pelosi, learn in court docket, each Nancy and Paul Pelosi requested the choose to impose prolonged sentences.

In her letter, Nancy Pelosi mentioned her husband continues to endure bodily and emotionally from the assault, and that the violent incident “has had a devastating impact on three generations of our household.”

“It’s subsequently mandatory that the responsible celebration’s sentence be very lengthy as a punishment for the assault and the accidents Paul continues to endure — and as a deterrent to others contemplating violence towards public officers,” the previous speaker wrote.

Paul Pelosi mentioned his life “has been irrevocably modified,” and that he hasn’t absolutely recovered. He famous {that a} blood stain on the entrance entryway and the steel plate now embedded in his head function enduring reminders of the assault.

Federal prosecutors had requested a 40-year federal prison term with a terrorism enhancement, arguing that DePape has demonstrated no regret and {that a} powerful sentence would function a deterrent to different would-be assailants motivated by ideological extremism.

“At a time when extremism has led to assaults on public and elected officers, this case presents a second to talk to others harboring ideologically motivated violent goals and plans,” Assistant U.S. Attys. Helen Gilbert and Laura Vartain Horn wrote in a Might 10 submitting.

DePape confronted a mixed 50 years in federal jail: 30 years on the assault cost and 20 years for the tried kidnapping. Scott Corley sentenced him to the utmost time period on each counts, however to be served concurrently for a complete of 30 years. He’ll get credit score for the roughly 18 months he has spent in state custody.

DePape, 44, was accused of touring from his Richmond residence to the Pelosis’ Pacific Heights house within the early morning hours of Oct. 28, 2022, with plans to carry the lawmaker hostage and interrogate her relating to unfounded claims fueled by far-right conspiracy theorists of corruption, human trafficking and little one abuse by Democrats and different public figures.

DePape broke into the house, however as a substitute of discovering Nancy Pelosi, who was in Washington on the time, he stumbled throughout the bed room the place her husband was sleeping.

“The door opened and a really giant man got here in, with a hammer in a single hand and a few ties within the different hand,” Paul Pelosi testified. “And he mentioned, ‘The place’s Nancy?’ And I feel that’s what woke me up.”

He was capable of get to his cellphone within the lavatory and dial 911. When the police arrived, the 2 males had been struggling over DePape’s hammer. The prosecutors confirmed jurors graphic police body-camera video of DePape bludgeoning Paul Pelosi, then 82, fracturing his cranium and severely injuring his proper arm and left hand.

Nonetheless-pending state prices accuse DePape of tried homicide, assault with a lethal weapon, elder abuse, housebreaking and threats to a public official and her household. In distinction, the federal trial centered on whether or not DePape’s actions that morning had been indelibly tied to Speaker Pelosi’s official duties in Congress.

In making their case, federal prosecutors supplied jurors an in depth evaluate of DePape’s on-line purchases and search historical past to display how he spent months getting ready for the assault. Jurors heard parts of a police interview wherein DePape mentioned he thought of Speaker Pelosi the Democrats’ “chief of the pack,” and mentioned he would “break her kneecaps” if she didn’t admit to corruption and different claims of human trafficking and little one abuse.

DePape’s federal public defenders, Jodi Linker and Angela Chuang, had urged the choose to contemplate a extra lenient 14-year sentence, arguing their shopper suffers from psychological well being points and trauma from an abusive relationship with Gypsy Taub, his former romantic associate and the mom of his youngsters.

Linker and Chuang by no means disputed that their shopper dedicated the violence. They as a substitute tried to persuade the jury that DePape was motivated by elaborate conspiracy theories that had been nonetheless his deeply held beliefs.

They referenced help letters from household and associates describing the crimes as “utterly out of character.”

“David was by no means violent when he was younger, and I’m sorry that this has occurred,” DePape’s stepfather, Gene DePape, wrote in a press release to The Instances. “I’m very sorry to Paul and Nancy.”

The attorneys based mostly a lot of their request for leniency on the affect of Taub, a Bay Space nudism activist who recently served time in state jail for attempting to abduct a 14-year-old boy in Berkeley. They maintained Taub remoted DePape from his household and “immersed him in a world of utmost beliefs the place actuality just isn’t actuality.”

“His long-term relationship together with his ex-partner, Gypsy Taub, inflicted immeasurable hurt to his psychological state and what little help community he had within the type of his household,” DePape’s attorneys wrote in a Might 10 sentencing memo.

Chuang reiterated that argument throughout the sentencing listening to, saying DePape was “gaslit, abused and he was very deliberately reduce off from his household,” whereas Taub watched quietly from a court docket bench.

In a recorded audio assertion she despatched The Instances this week, Taub dismissed the attorneys’ allegations of abuse, saying: “I really like David. I’ll all the time love him, no matter what he does or says.”

“He’s an extremely stunning human being. However he’s very damaged,” Taub mentioned.

Throughout an interview with The Instances earlier than DePape’s trial in her cluttered, eclectic Berkeley house, Taub espoused a variety of conspiracy theories, utilizing phrasing practically similar to what DePape shared in his testimony, together with her perception that the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist assaults had been actually “an inside job” and that authorities has been corrupted by satanic cults that prey on youngsters.

On the time, she was adamant DePape had been falsely accused within the Pelosi assault, describing him as candy and delicate. He was such a pleasant particular person, she mentioned, that even after she married one other man, she allowed DePape to maintain residing in her house and supported him financially.

In a single video Taub shared from greater than a decade in the past, she and DePape are nude, discussing his latest expertise with psychedelics at a Burning Man pageant within the Nevada desert.

“What’s your dream for the planet?” Taub requested.

“I’d actually like there to be peace,” he responded.

“And if the entire world might hear you proper now, what could be your message to the world?” she requested.

“God is love. God is loving,” he mentioned. “And that is an phantasm.”