SAN FRANCISCO – The man who was sentenced to 30 years in federal jail for attacking former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband with a hammer of their California residence was sentenced to life in jail with out the potential of parole Tuesday in following a separate state trial.
In June, a San Francisco jury discovered David DePape responsible of expenses together with aggravated kidnapping, first-degree housebreaking and false imprisonment of an elder.
Before sentencing DePape to life in jail for kidnapping, Judge Harry Dorfman rejected protection attorneys’ arguments that he ought to be granted a state new trial for the 2022 assault on Paul Pelosi, who was 82 on the time.
“It is my intention that Mr. DePape won’t ever get out of jail, won’t ever be paroled,” Dorfman mentioned as he doled out the punishment. He later mentioned: “I’ve no sympathy for you. I really feel sympathy for the sufferer on this case, who’s fortunate to be alive.
Adam Lipson, a San Francisco deputy public defender, had requested Dorfman to contemplate DePape’s psychological well being and isolation making him prone to on-line propaganda.
“This is a person who has at all times been a peaceable, law-abiding particular person till his activation,” Lipson mentioned earlier than the punishment was handed down.
When given an opportunity to deal with the court docket earlier than his sentencing, DePape, wearing jail orange and together with his brown hair pulled again in a ponytail, spoke at size about how 9/11 was a job inside, during which his ex-wife was changed by a physique double. and his government-provided attorneys conspire towards him.
“I’m a psychic,” DePape informed the court docket, studying from sheets of paper. “The extra I meditate, the extra psychic I turn into.”
The decide interrupted DePape a number of instances to ask him if he needed to deal with the jury’s verdict or his conduct the night time of the assault, however DePape ignored the affords.
In a letter learn in court docket by the sufferer’s daughter, Christine Pelosi, Paul Pelosi known as for the utmost sentence, saying that “the final peaceable sleep” was abruptly interrupted “when the defendant violently broke into my residence, broke into in my bed room and stopped to look at.” my mattress with a hammer and zip ties demanding to see my spouse, screaming ‘Where’s Nancy?'”
He mentioned the assault left him with bumps on his head, a steel plate inside it, dizziness and nerve injury in his left hand. Sleeping alone at residence evokes recollections of the assault, he mentioned.
In an announcement after Tuesday’s sentencing, the Pelosi household mentioned that after two grueling years, “justice has been served.”
“Today’s sentence of life with out parole offers our Pop some measure of authorized justice and, we hope, a message to others that political violence towards elected officers or their relations is not going to be tolerated, minimized or condoned,” it reads within the assertion. “Each of us should do our half to construct a peaceable democracy.”
Previously, a federal jury convicted DePape of assaulting a member of the family of a federal official and making an attempt to kidnap a federal official. In May he was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison.
Although DePape expressed regret for his actions in the course of the federal sentencing, he didn’t achieve this Tuesday. In each instances the justices mentioned they may not ignore the seriousness of concentrating on elected officers.
Judge Dorfman on Tuesday sentenced DePape to further years on the opposite counts as properly, however all sentences, together with the federal one, will run concurrently. He mentioned if an appeals court docket overturns his life with out parole sentence, he’ll ask that the case be despatched again to his court docket for resentencing.
Lipson informed reporters after the listening to that he’ll attraction the sentence. “This was a really tragic finish to a tragic story,” he mentioned.
The prosecutors, San Francisco assistant district attorneys Sean Connolly and Phoebe Maffei, mentioned in an announcement that the sentence displays the severity of DePape’s conduct and the hurt he inflicted on an harmless man.
“There is nothing to rejoice in these instances. There are not any winners,” he mentioned.
The protection argued that the state prosecution amounted to double jeopardy, saying that though the state and federal counts weren’t precisely the identical, the 2 instances stem from the identical act. The decide dismissed among the state expenses, however stored others that weren’t coated within the federal case.
The October 28, 2022 assault on Paul Pelosi was captured on police body camera video a couple of days earlier than the midterm elections and shocked the political world. He suffered head accidents, together with a cranium fracture that was repaired with plates and screws.
DePape, a Canadian citizen who has lived within the United States for years, admitted in the course of the federal trial that he deliberate to carry Nancy Pelosi hostage, report her interrogation and “break her kneecaps” if she didn’t admit to the lies he had informed him. clerk. mentioned he spoke about “Russiagate,” a reference to the investigation into Russian meddling within the 2016 presidential marketing campaign.
