David DePape, the conspiracy theorist who attacked Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, with a hammer and plotted to interrogate the former House speaker on video, was convicted Friday of state charges related to the assault.
A jury found DePape guilty of five felony counts in state court, according to several news outlets. The charges resulted from an attack that investigators described as the beginning of a planned “rampage” to go after high-profile targets, including actor Tom Hanks and Gov. Gavin Newsom.
He was convicted of imprisonment, residential burglary, threatening a family member of a public official, attempting to sway a witness and aggravated kidnapping. The verdict comes seven months after he was found guilty of federal charges in the attack.
DePape’s social media accounts, and interviews with friends and former co-workers, detail how he began to descend into baseless right-wing conspiracy theories. He wrote blog posts about several discredited conspiracy theories, including those popularly known as “Pizzagate” and “QAnon,” which posited large sexual abuse rings run by Hollywood and Democratic Party figures.
San Francisco Assistant Dist. Atty. Phoebe Maffei argued during the trial that DePape targeted Nancy Pelosi because of her role as House speaker at the time, making her second in line for the presidency, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. She was not home during the break-in.
“We haven’t seen anybody make a plan to break into the home of one of our national leaders, hold hostage and nearly kill that person’s spouse,” Maffei told jurors, according to the Chronicle. “Thankfully this is unusual. But it’s what happened.”
Attorneys with the San Francisco public defender’s office, which represented DePape, successfully sought to have several charges against him dismissed in the state case, arguing that they were similar to those he had been convicted of in federal court.
In response, San Francisco County Superior Court Judge Harry Dorfman tossed out the counts of attempted murder, elder abuse and assault with a deadly weapon. Defense attorneys argued that the state’s double jeopardy law prohibits defendants from being tried more than once on the same crime.
In his closing arguments, Public Defender Adam Lipson argued that his client might be guilty of false imprisonment, residential burglary and attempting to sway a witness. But, he told jurors, DePape should not be convicted of aggravated kidnapping and threatening a family member of a public official, the Chronicle reported.
Lipson reportedly argued that DePape’s threats were not specific to Pelosi’s role as House speaker, but rather to find and reach other targets.
Conspiracy theories continued to play a role as the state trial came to a close this week.
On Tuesday, Dorfman barred DePape’s former partner from the courtroom and second floor of the building, the Associated Press reported. The decision came after Gypsy Taub, a nudism activist, handed out fliers outside the courtroom with links to her website, which promotes a series of conspiracy theories.
The day Dorfman kicked her out of the second floor, the address for Taub’s website was spotted on a wall and on a toilet paper dispenser in a women’s bathroom at the courthouse.
Dorfman accused Taub of “trying to corruptly influence one or more jury members” and instructed bailiffs to escort her out.
The man convicted in the 2022 hammer attack on Paul Pelosi will appear in court Tuesday, as the sentencing hearing in his case is being reopened due to a court error.
A federal judge sentenced David DePape to 30 years after being found guilty of assaulting the husband of former Speaker Nancy Pelosi in their San Francisco home. DePape was convicted of assault and attempted kidnapping charges.
During the hearing on May 17, the judge overseeing the trial made an error in sentencing when she did not give DePape the opportunity to make a statement before sentencing.
Prosecutors noticed the mistake that afternoon and notified the court. DePape’s lawyers promptly filed an appeal.
Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley wrote, “no party brought to the court’s attention” that it had not allowed Mr. DePape to speak, a requirement of federal criminal procedures. “As the court did not do so, it committed clear error,” she wrote.
At Tuesday’s hearing, DePape would have the option to speak.
The error is unlikely to alter his sentence, which consists of 30 years for the assault charge and 20 years for the attempted kidnapping charge being run concurrently. DePape was given credit for time served for the 18 months he has been in custody.
Tim Fang is a digital producer at CBS Bay Area. A Bay Area native, Tim has been a part of the CBS Bay Area newsroom for two decades and joined the digital staff in 2006.
A unicorn costume, a hammer and a belief that pedophiles are using public schools to destroy democracy: The trial of David DePape for attacking Paul Pelosi was strange and disturbing.
But take away the costume and the hammer, and the reasoning for DePape’s vicious attack is alarmingly mainstream — pedophile panic.
By that, I mean the outrageous effort not just by hate-mongering conspiracy theorists to frame LGBTQ+ individuals as deviant and dangerous, lumping them in with criminals who sexually abuse children. But also a cynical bid by some politicians, clergy and grifters to do the same.
Anti-LGBTQ+ attacks are everywhere, both physical and political. Hysteria about pedophiles, driven by conspiracy theories, has trampled truth.
As DePape explained it on the stand, he is concerned about “groomer schools,” where teachers are “queering the students, pushing transgenderism to confuse children about their identities to make them more vulnerable to abuse and Marxist indoctrination.”
Sound familiar? It could have been a quote from a Huntington Beach City Council meeting, a Republican presidential rally or a debate on the floor of the Florida Legislature, where the controversial “don’t say gay” bill last year was described by an aide to Gov. Ron DeSantis as an “anti-grooming” law.
The quote is, in fact, DePape’s summary of what he learned from right-wing podcaster James Lindsay about one of DePape’s top targets, a professor of feminist theory and queer studies whose house seemed, to DePape, too difficult to break into. So he went to Pelosi’s brick mansion instead.
When a San Francisco jury came back with a guilty verdict against DePape, it was hardly a bombshell. It is fact that DePape smashed a hammer into Pelosi’s skull, a brutal act caught on camera and uncontested even by his own lawyers.
What was lost with the quickness of the in-an-out, no-surprises trial — and what should be chilling to any supporter of civil rights — was the defense team’s argument about why DePape created his elaborate plot, which was going to involve donning the unicorn costume while interrogating the victim’s wife, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, about government corruption, and, you guessed it, pedophiles.
It wasn’t conventional politics. It wasn’t even aimed at Nancy Pelosi. The powerful San Francisco Democrat was somewhere down a list that included the mother of DePape’s two sons, Tom Hanks, George Soros, Hunter Biden and performance artist Marina Abramovic.
DePape was propelled by the hyper-drive conspiracies that have bled out from internet chat rooms onto streets and into school boards — amped-up paranoia about threats not just to the white Christian values that some perceive as intrinsic to our country’s identity, but to the safety of our children.
“It’s not just that she’s a pedo-activist. It’s that she wants to turn all the schools into pedophile molestation factories,” DePape said of the queer studies professor he was targeting.
“She wants to destroy children’s sense of identity because it’s her opinion that this will lead them to grow up dysfunctional and unhappy. And if they’re dysfunctional and unhappy, they will be maladjusted to society, hate society, and want to become communist activists,” he said.
Those kind of beliefs, ugly and untrue, can no longer be considered extreme, or extremism.
“For parents, rejecting radical gender theory is a matter of protecting their children. The rest of us, though, should reject queer theory’s attempt to gain control of the next generation,” he wrote.
Or Trump’s recent sit-down interview with conservative activists Moms for America, in which he lamented that the “indoctrination programs” at public schools are “out of control” and promised quickly to end them if elected.
Jared Dmello, an expert on extremism and an incoming senior lecturer at University of Adelaide in Australia, told me that mainstream politics is “driving an anti-LGBTQ ideology.”
Where once conspiracy was relegated to dark corners, it now has a symbiotic relationship with the mainstream, he said, each building off whatever “evidence” or current events play into the narrative with such speed and force that the sheer amount of information makes it seem like it must be true.
“The whole goal is to introduce so much chaos into the atmosphere that it’s hard to distinguish what is fact from fiction,” he said.
Mission accomplished.
A recent Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) poll on threats to American democracy found 59% of Republicans think that what children are learning in school is a critical issue facing the United States. A 2022 poll by USC found that while roughly 60% of Democrats support teaching high school students about gender identity, gay and transgender rights or sexual orientation, only about 30% of Republicans feel the same.
Of course, parents have good reasons to be concerned about public schools, especially in the wake of the pandemic when teachers are burned out, budgets are tight and students are coping with sky-high levels of mental health challenges.
But Joan Donovan, an expert in disinformation and a professor at Boston University, told me that while violence remains rare, vigilantes such DePape aren’t the lone wolves we like to believe. She said violence, whether by individuals or groups, is going to increase as the 2024 election nears.
“I wish it were the case that they were fringe, but they do seem to represent a larger sentiment online,” she said. “Of course taking action in the form of assaulting or attempting to murder people is in and of itself horrendous, but if you look at the kind of discourse that emboldens these people, it’s the natural outcome.”
Support for political violence has increased over the past two years, with nearly a quarter of Americans now agreeing that “because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.” That comes from the recent PRRI poll on threats to American democracy.
That percentage has increased from 15% in 2021.
But get ready for it: 41% of Republicans who like Trump agreed violence may be necessary, and 46% of Trump supporters who believe the election was stolen also believe violence may be an answer. That’s nearly half.
By all accounts, DePape was just a lonesome loser, unremarkable and peaceful, until he started delving into conspiracy theories during the pandemic. Living in a Bay Area garage that didn’t even have a bathroom, he spent his free time — hours every day — playing video games while listening to conspiracy podcasters pushing what we were then calling QAnon.
I won’t go so far as to say he was a victim, but he was a vessel for a fire hose flow of propaganda, holding it all in until doing nothing seemed unconscionable. He is accountable for his violence, but it is clear he has lost the ability to parse truth from that swamp of what he calls research.
Somewhere along his journey, DePape began believing that a secret cabal of so-called elites was ruling the world and participating in a cult that sexually abused children.
That’s how DePape came up with his list of targets — most of those on it are somewhere in QAnon lore — a set of conspiracies that QAnon expert and Michigan State University professor Laura Dilley told me “absolutely are endemic now.”
At its core, the political turmoil caused by these falsehoods is not much different from the satanic panic that ruled in the 1980s, driven by discomfort with more women joining the workforce and leaving their children in day care. Then, too, conservatives vilified the LGBTQ+ community to fuel fear that children were in danger and American society was on the brink of collapse.
And Donovan points out that even the KKK focused on children and education in the 1920s, with the same arguments about American values.
So none of this is new.
But we are capable of not repeating the past. Hate and conspiracy aren’t normal. They aren’t American values, to be debated as valid political positions.
David DePape was fighting an enemy conjured by lies. That enemy may not be real, but the danger of those lies is.
A San Francisco jury on Thursday found David DePape guilty of federal charges in last year’s violent hammer attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at the couple’s home. DePape faces up to 50 years in prison.
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David DePape took the stand Tuesday morning in his federal trial and tearfully recounted his motivations – fueled by conspiracy theories and right-wing media – that led to the bludgeoning of Paul Pelosi, husband of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, at their San Francisco mansion last year.
“At that time I was biased against Trump. But there’s, like, truth there,” he said, sobbing. “So if there’s truth out there that I don’t know, I want to know it.”
David DePape weeps while testifying at his federal trial in the attack on Paul Pelosi, Nov. 14, 2023.
Sketch by Vicki Behringer
Originally from Canada, DePape said he was doing carpentry and living in a friend’s garage in Richmond at the time of the attack, using bathrooms at parks or restaurants. He testified that he spent endless hours playing video games as well as watching and listening to political content online.
DePape said he mainly watched YouTube videos and listened to podcasts from the likes of Tim Pool, Glenn Beck and conservative media outlets, He described his worldview as taking up a battle against a sinister cabal of government officials, celebrities, and pedophiles driving the country to ruin, echoing baseless Q-Anon diatribes.
The defense claims said the attack at the Pelosis’ home was part of a bigger plan to end corruption in the U.S. DePape has pleaded not guilty to attempted kidnapping of a federal official and assault on the immediate family member of a federal official with intent to retaliate against the official for performance of their duties.
His attorneys argue that he was not seeking to go after Nancy Pelosi because of her official duties as a member of Congress and so the charges do not fit.
The attack happened in the early hours of Oct. 28, 2022, just days before the midterm elections. DePape said he went to the Pelosis’ home to talk to Nancy Pelosi about Russian involvement in the 2016 election, and that he planned to wear an inflatable unicorn costume and upload his interrogation of her online. Prosecutors say he had rope and zip ties with him.
In testimony Monday, Paul Pelosi recounted the attack publicly for the first time, He recalled being awakened by a man bursting into the bedroom door asking, “Where’s Nancy?” He said that when he responded that his wife was in Washington, DePape said he would tie him up while they waited for her.
Pelosi testified he tried to remain calm and affable while managing to call 911. On the stand Tuesday, DePape testified that he felt really bad for Pelosi after hearing testimony from a neurosurgeon who operated on him after the attack. Pelosi underwent surgery to repair a skull fracture and injuries to his right arm and hands.
“We had a good rapport going on,” said DePape on the stand Tuesday. “I gave him a squeeze on the shoulder to be reassuring. The idea of restraining him didn’t really occur to me.”
DePape bludgeoned Pelosi on the head when officers appeared at the Pelosi front door to find the men grappling over the hammer.
“I reacted because my plan was basically ruined,” DePape said when asked why he hit Pelosi.
“I actually thought he was dead until I heard the charges,” he said. “He was never my target and I am sorry he got hurt.”
Multiple Targets
DePape testified that his plan was to get to Nancy Pelosi and other targets to admit to their corruption and eventually get President Joe Biden to pardon them all. His list of targets also included Hunter Biden, Congressman Adam Schiff, former Attorney General Bill Barr, Tom Hanks, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
“It’s just easier giving them a pardon so we can move forward as a country,” he said, crying.
“There is a sympathy defense here. A sympathy defense is not a legal defense. A sympathy defense is an attempt to get a jury to acquit or to hang,” explained UC San Francisco law professor Rory Little. “The intent for the defense is to have compassion for this guy. There’s no doubt here that DePape is presented as a sympathetic figure; a sad, almost pathetic and deluded person.”
Also on DePape’s list was Bay Area scholar Dr. Gayle Rubin, a leading academic in feminist theory and queer studies and a cultural anthropologist at the University of Michigan, previously identified in court papers as “Target 1.”
DePape stated besides Hunter Biden, Target 1 was at the top of his list and he planned to go to Rubin, a target of right-wing groups over her writings that have been misconstrued and which are now used to demonize the LGBTQ community.
U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley ordered her name not be put in the public record because of threats against her. However, Rubin has been identified as Target 1 by both prosecutors and defense attorneys as well as in published reports.
“Because she is a pedo activist. she wants to turn all the schools into pedo factories,” DePape testified about why he Rubin on his list. “if she was just a pedo activist I probably wouldn’t have targeted her.
DePape said he looked up Rubin’s home but it appeared on maps to be difficult to gain entry. His hope was to use Pelosi to get to Rubin.
“I figured Target 1 would know Nancy and be attracted to her celebrity,’ he said.
Dr. Gayle Rubin (2nd from top right) testifies as Target 1 at the federal trial of David DePape, Nov. 14, 2023 in San Francisco.
Sketch by Vicki Behringer
Rubin testified using the “Target 1” pseudonym Tuesday, saying “Absolutely not,” when asked if she supported the sexual abuse of children. She also said her workplace had to take measures to ensure her safety following word that DePape had her at the top of his list.
“Regardless of how sympathetic they may be, and that is where, if they follow the law, it sounds to me like they will have to vote to convict,” said Little.
Closing arguments begin when the trial resumes on Wednesday, when the jury could also deliver its verdict.
f convicted, DePape faces life in prison. He has pleaded not guilty to charges in state court of attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, elder abuse, residential burglary and other felonies. A state trial has not been scheduled.
Kenny Choi, Kathleen Seccombe, and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Paul Pelosi, husband of former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, offered chilling details in federal court on Monday of the night he was allegedly attacked and bludgeoned with a hammer by a man now on trial for attempted kidnapping and assault.
Paul Pelosi, 83, took the stand on the second day of the federal trial against David DePape, who faces federal charges for attempting to kidnap the Democratic congresswoman and assaulting her husband with the intent to interfere with the lawmaker’s official duties or retaliate against her.
DePape, 43, is accused of traveling from his Richmond residence to the Pelosis’ San Francisco home the early morning of Oct. 28, 2022, in search of the lawmaker, allegedly with plans to hold her hostage and question her regarding far-right conspiracy theories involving the Democratic Party and a list of politicians and public figures.
Instead of finding Nancy Pelosi, who was in Washington at the time, DePape wandered through the quiet Pacific Heights home before stumbling upon a bedroom with her husband sleeping inside.
“The door opened and a very large man came in, with a hammer in one hand and some ties in the other hand,” Paul Pelosi testified. “And he said ‘Where’s Nancy?’ And I think that’s what woke me up.”
Until then, it was a typical evening.
Paul Pelosi told jurors he’d gone to dinner that night in San Francisco. He went to sleep as usual between 11:30 p.m. and midnight, bringing a cup of ice water he took to bed each evening. He didn’t set the alarm system, which the family only used when they were out of town, because it’s sensitive and will go off easily with people in the home.
A couple of hours later, Paul Pelosi woke up in “tremendous shock” after realizing that “someone had broken into the house.”
“And looking at him and looking at the hammer and the ties, I recognized that I was in serious danger,” he said. “And so I tried to stay as calm as possible.”
Paul Pelosi said he told DePape that his wife was in Washington.
“Well then we’re going to have to wait for her,” Paul Pelosi said DePape responded.
DePape told Paul Pelosi that his wife was the “leader of the pack,” and “he had to take her out,” he testified. Because she wasn’t home, Paul Pelosi said DePape told him he had to tie him up and wait for her.
“He had these cords in his hand. I assume that’s what he was going to use,” he said.
Paul Pelosi said he first tried to move toward the elevator outside the couple’s bedroom, which had a telephone inside. But DePape caught on, Paul Pelosi said, so instead he moved toward his bathroom where he charged his cellphone each night.
He called 911, but didn’t feel like he could be honest with the dispatcher about the situation. DePape still had the hammer, and was demanding that Paul Pelosi tell the dispatcher that he was just a friend of the family.
“And looking at him and looking at the hammer and the ties, I recognized that I was in serious danger,” Paul Pelosi, shown above, told the jury in the federal trial against David DePape. “And so I tried to stay as calm as possible.”
(Noah Berger / Associated Press)
According to his court testimony, Paul Pelosi hung up the 911 call, and tried to reason with the intruder. DePape said he was tired, and wanted to tie Paul Pelosi up so that he could get some sleep. Paul Pelosi suggested the two men walk downstairs, where DePape left his two backpacks and other belongings. Paul Pelosi said he knew that if the police came, they needed to get downstairs where it would be easier to arrest the suspect.
“He said, ‘Oh, the police are going to be here, it’s over for me, I’m going to have to take you out,’ things like that,” Paul Pelosi said DePape told him. “I said ‘No, they’re probably not going to come. They’re probably not going to come.’
“And then the police were at the door.”
Police body camera footage shows Paul Pelosi — holding his cup of water — opening the door with DePape standing next to him. The two were fighting for control of the hammer, which officers ordered them to drop.
DePape instead grabbed it from Paul Pelosi and swung it at his head multiple times, fracturing his skull and causing injuries to his arm and hand. Photo and video evidence shown to the jury on Thursday depict Paul Pelosi lying in a pool of his blood, struggling to breathe as police tackled DePape.
He was hospitalized for more than a week at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital for a fractured skill and other injuries. He received a dozen stitches on the back of his right arm, he said, and his badly damaged left hand was also treated. Paul Pelosi told the jurors that the plastic surgeon was able to reconstruct his hand and avoid doing skin grafts, while his head injury recovery included regaining his balance and “getting my walking back.”
Paul Pelosi recounted the attack as his daughter, Christine Pelosi, sat in the far back corner of the courtroom and while DePape watched from beside his defense attorneys.
Despite the graphic testimony and evidence, the trial is considered far from an easy assault case. Prosecutors bear the burden of proving that the attack was due to Nancy Pelosi’s role as House Speaker, and that DePape intended to kidnap her after breaking into the lawmaker’s home.
Assistant U.S. Atty. Laura Vartain Horn told the federal court jury in her opening arguments on Thursday that DePape had gone to the couple’s home that early morning with the idea to hold Nancy Pelosi “hostage,” “break her kneecaps” and “teach her a lesson.”
“When the defendant broke into the speaker’s home, he had a plan,” Horn told the jury of 12 men and three women. “It was a violent plan.”
Prosecutors attempted to bolster their argument on Monday when questioning FBI Special Agent Stephanie Minor, who has handled the case over the last year. Minor walked the jurors through a series of videos showing DePape traveling from the East Bay to the Pelosis’ home, and described a list of his internet searches in the days leading up to the attack.
Minor explained how DePape had extensively researched the Pelosi family, along with others on his so-called target list, and paid for a service that provided their emails and home addresses. The prosecution also played a recording of a phone call DePape made to a reporter earlier this year, in which he seemingly apologizes for not being successful in his mission.
“I have an important message for everyone in America. You’re welcome,” he said. “I would also like to apologize…I’m so sorry I didn’t get more of them.”
But federal public defenders Jodi Linker and Angela Chuang have disputed the argument that DePape intended to kidnap Nancy Pelosi or attack Paul Pelosi because of his wife’s official position in Congress.
Instead, they claim that the Pelosi home was the first stop in a broader scheme to end corruption and other offenses he believed were being committed by the Democratic Party and public officials and celebrities.
DePape’s plan was to use Nancy Pelosi to put an end to his QAnon-like theory that Democratic politicians and public officials were abusing and trafficking children, the jury was told.
“This is not a who done it,” Linker told the jury in her opening argument. It was a “why done it,” she said, “and the why matters.”
The assault has inspired additional conspiracies and prompted political attacks against the Pelosi family, including from former President Trump.
Along with the federal criminal case, DePape faces separate state charges including assault with a deadly weapon, elder abuse, burglary and threats to a public official and their family.
Paul Pelosi said he’s mostly recovered from his injuries, but that he still suffers from lightheadedness and headaches.
“There are still lumps on my head. If I run my fingers, I can still feel dents and lumps,” he said. “They’re not as sensitive to the touch as they were.”
The recovery process was “very painful,” he said. He said that he had not read news related to the incident, nor had he listened to the tapes or watched the videos.
“I’ve tried to put it out of my mind,” he said, taking periodic pauses to maintain his composure.
“I’ve made the best effort I possibly can to not relive this.”
The man accused of brutally attacking former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, with a hammer last year expressed regret on Friday that he didn’t do more, according to a jailhouse call that he reportedly had with a California news station.
David DePape shared a stunning lack of remorse for the violence during what was described as an unexpected phone call to KTVU, the San Francisco TV station reported. The call followed the public release of police body camera footage capturing the incident.
“I want to apologize to everyone. I messed up. What I did was really bad. I’m so sorry I didn’t get more of them. It’s my own fault. No one else is to blame. I should have come better prepared,” he told KTVU reporter Amber Lee, according to audio of the call posted online.
His defense attorneys did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment Sunday.
David DePape, charged in last year’s violent attack on former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, said he regrets that he didn’t come “better prepared.”
DePape, who is behind bars on charges of attempted murder, elder abuse and kidnapping, which he’s pleaded not guilty to, reportedly refused questions from Lee reasoning that it could jeopardize his criminal case. Regardless, in the call’s recording he appears to admit to plotting and carrying out the Oct. 28 attack while defending it as taking a stand for Americans’ freedom.
“You’re welcome,” he says after acknowledging the video footage capturing the early morning home invasion that hospitalized 82-year-old Paul Pelosi.
“Freedom and liberty isn’t dying, it’s being killed systemically and deliberately,” he says in the recording. “The people killing it have names and addresses so I got their names and addresses so I could pay them a little visit. Have a heart-to-heart chat about their bad behavior.”
He goes on to say that he’s in the process of setting up a website to spout his conspiracy theories that will be “out of the reach of tyrannical global fascists and their internet censors.” His defense team on Friday requested that he be permitted to use a computer while behind bars so he can review material related to his criminal case, according to a court filing.
One of DePape’s public defenders expressed concern Friday that he may not receive a fair trial following the release of the police body camera footage that shows him wrestling with Pelosi over control of the hammer. He then appears to strike Pelosi over the head with the tool, knocking him unconscious.
“The footage is inflammatory and could feed unfounded theories about this case, and we are extremely concerned about Mr. DePape’s ability to get a fair trial,” San Francisco Deputy Public Defender Adam Lipson told The Associated Press while calling the footage’s release a “terrible mistake.”
The man accused of attacking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband with a hammer had a list of future targets that included Hollywood superstar Tom Hanks and California Governor Gavin Newsom, a San Francisco police investigator testified Wednesday.
The suspect, David DePape, broke into the couple’s San Francisco home Oct. 28, seeking to kidnap the speaker – who was out of town – and instead beat her 82-year-old husband, Paul Pelosi, with a hammer, authorities said. The violence sent shockwaves through the political world.
DePape said there was “evil in Washington” and he was looking to harm Pelosi because she is second in line for the presidency, the investigator testified.
San Francisco Superior Court Judge Stephen Murphy ruled that prosecutors had shown enough evidence during a preliminary hearing to move forward with a trial on the state charges, including attempted murder. DePape is due back in state court on Dec. 28.
Lt. Carla Hurley, who interviewed DePape for an hour the day of the attack, testified Wednesday that the defendant told her of other people he wanted to target, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, actor Tom Hanks and Hunter Biden, one of President Joe Biden’s sons. Hurley did not say whether police had any evidence of a plot against them, and San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said after the hearing she couldn’t comment further.
Authorities had previously said DePape told investigators he had other targets, but a court document stated only that they were a local professor as well as several prominent state and federal politicians and members of their families.
DePape, who appeared in court wearing orange jail clothes, has pleaded not guilty to federal and state charges, including attempted murder, burglary and elder abuse. He remains held without bail.
“There is evil in Washington, what they did went so far beyond the campaign,” DePape told Hurley, according to a recording of their interview that was played in court.
DePape’s public defender, Adam Lipson, declined to comment after the judge’s ruling, saying, “We’ll be fighting this case in court, not in the hallway.”
In November, Nancy Pelosi said she would step down as Democrats’ leader in the House after 20 years but remain in office. Her official portrait was unveiled Wednesday in Washington as the court hearing took place more than 2,500 miles away.
Paul Pelosi, her husband of nearly 60 years, joined her for the ceremony at the U.S. Capitol wearing a hat and a glove that covered his injuries from the attack. He also attended the Kennedy Center Honors on Sunday night, marking his first public appearance since the assault.
Hurley, who was a sergeant at the time of the attack and was recently promoted to lieutenant, testified that DePape told Paul Pelosi he wanted to talk to Nancy Pelosi because “she is the second in line to the presidency.”
If the U.S. president and the vice president become unable to serve, the speaker of the U.S. House assumes the presidency.
Hurley also said DePape told her that he was seeking the speaker and told her husband that he was not part of the plan.
Still, DePape told Paul Pelosi, “I can take you out, I can take you out,” Hurley testified.
Hurley said DePape told her that after he saw the lights of a police patrol car, he told Paul Pelosi, “I’m not going to surrender, I am here to fight. If you stop me from going after people, you will take the punishment instead.”
Prosecutors presented the hammer that was allegedly used in the assault during Wednesday’s proceedings, which were attended by Christine Pelosi, one of the Pelosis’ five adult children.
The district attorney’s office also played audio of Paul Pelosi’s 911 call to San Francisco police in the courtroom and showed video – less than a minute long – of the attack that was captured on body cameras.
DePape told police he was on a “suicide mission,” court documents say. Authorities have said he was drawn to conspiracy theories.
DePape smashed his way into the Pelosis’ home, confronted Paul Pelosi, who was sleeping in boxer shorts and a pajama top, and demanded to know where “Nancy” was, according to court documents.
DePape then told Paul Pelosi that if Nancy Pelosi told him the “truth,” he would let her go and if she “lied,” he was going to break her kneecaps, ” the criminal complaint alleges.
San Francisco Police Officer Kyle Cagney, who was one of two first responding officers testified Wednesday that he saw both men holding the hammer when the door opened. DePape did not obey officers’ commands to drop the weapon and instead lunged at Paul Pelosi and swung the hammer at him, Cagney said.
Paul Pelosi was knocked unconscious and woke up in a pool of his own blood. He later underwent surgery to repair a skull fracture and serious injuries to his right arm and hands.
The speaker was in Washington at the time and under the protection of her security detail, which does not extend to family members.
In an interview with John Dickerson for “CBS Sunday Morning,” Alexandra Pelosi said her father’s scars are healing but that the emotional damage may never go away.
“He is getting better every day, thank you for asking,” Alexandra told Dickerson. “The scars are healing. I mean, he looks like Frankenstein. The scars are healing. but I think the emotional scars, I don’t know if those ever heal.”
The suspect accused of assaulting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, was arraigned on Tuesday. A judge denied David DePape, who pleaded not guilty, bail during the hearing. Jonathan Vigliotti has the latest.
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John Dickerson reports on the plea entered by the Pelosi attack suspect, the last-minute push for midterm voters from Obama and Biden, and the impact of Russia’s withdrawal from a grain deal on global food supplies.
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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The man accused of breaking into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s home, beating her husband and seeking to kidnap her told police he was on a “suicide mission” and had plans to target other California and federal politicians, according to a Tuesday court filing.
David DePape was ordered held without bail during his arraignment Tuesday in San Francisco Superior Court. His public defender entered a not-guilty plea on his behalf. It was the first public appearance since the early Friday attack for DePape, a fringe activist drawn to conspiracy theories.
In court papers filed Tuesday, prosecutors detailed the attack in stark terms as part of their bid to keep DePape behind bars. Paul Pelosi was knocked unconscious by the hammer attack and woke up in a pool of his own blood, the filing said.
DePape allegedly said he had other targets, including a local professor as well as several prominent state and federal politicians – and members of their families.
“This case demands detention,” Jenkins wrote in the court filing. “Nothing less.”
Wearing orange jail clothing, DePape only spoke to tell Judge Diane Northway how to pronounce his last name (dih-PAP’). The 42-year-old defendant is scheduled to return to court Friday.
After the hearing, DePape’s public defender Adam Lipson said he looks forward to providing DePape with a “vigorous defense.” He also said he met DePape on Monday night for the first time and had not seen the police reports yet.
“We’re going to be doing a comprehensive investigation of what happened. We’re going to be looking into Mr. DePape’s mental state, and I’m not going to talk any further about that until I have more information,” said Lipson, who noted that a no-bail detainer in state court is a moot point because DePape also has been placed on a federal hold in the case.
He later said he was pleased that Paul Pelosi was improving and expected to make a full recovery, adding he urged the public “not to pass judgment on what he called a complicated situation.”
“From experience, I can say that there’s always more to the story than what is initially reported,” he said, noting “there are a lot of rumors and speculation about this incident that will need to be sorted out in court once we review the evidence.”
“Mr. DePape is entitled to a vigorous legal defense, and we intend to give him one,” he added.
He also said DePape’s shoulder was dislocated during his arrest and that he was wearing a sling under his jail clothing during the hearing.
The Pelosi family had asked for a Zoom link to be able to watch Tuesday’s proceedings but the judge said she did not get the request ahead of time.
The attack on 82-year-old Paul Pelosi sent shockwaves through the political world just days before the hotly contested midterm elections. Threats against lawmakers and elections officials have been at all-time highs in this first nationwide election since the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol, and authorities have issued warnings about rising extremism in the U.S.
DePape faces state charges of attempted murder, burglary and elder abuse. He also faces federal charges including attempted kidnapping of a U.S. official. Those charges are outlined in an affidavit detailing the assault, which was largely captured on police body camera imagery after authorities responded to a 911 call from the Pelosis’ Pacific Heights home.
In Washington, U.S. Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger provided a sobering update Tuesday of security protocols for members of Congress.
Manger said that although many improvements have been made since the Capitol attack, including the hiring of nearly 280 officers by the end of this year, “there is still a lot of work to do.”
“We believe today’s political climate calls for more resources to provide additional layers of physical security for members of Congress,” he said
Manger said the attack on Pelosi’s husband was “an alarming reminder of the dangerous threats elected officials and public figures face during today’s contentious political climate.”
Speaker Pelosi was in Washington at the time and under the protection of her security detail, which does not extend to family members. She swiftly returned to San Francisco, where her husband was hospitalized and underwent surgery for a skull fracture and other injuries.
District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said the assault on Paul Pelosi appeared to be premeditated, and she appealed to Americans to “tone down” the political rhetoric.
During a news conference after the arraignment hearing, Jenkins said her office won’t release the 911 recording or police bodycam footage unless they’re presented at trial.
Mascaro reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Stefanie Dazio in Los Angeles and Michael Balsamo in Washington contributed.
