FORT PIERCE, Fla. — A man who plotted to kill President Donald Trump last year and staked him out at one of his Florida golf courses with a semiautomatic rifle was found guilty Tuesday of attempting to assassinate a major presidential candidate, a charge that carries a maximum penalty of life in prison.
Ryan W. Routh, 59, an itinerant building contractor from North Carolina who recently was living on Oahu, also was found guilty of assaulting a federal officer and several firearm violations. The 12-member jury deliberated for about 2 1/2 hours, following a fast-moving trial in which Routh chose to defend himself without a lawyer.
After the verdict was read in court, Routh appeared to try to stab himself in the neck several times with a pen. Several United States marshals restrained him and removed him from the courtroom. He returned a few minutes later, shackled and escorted by marshals. His necktie and jacket had been removed, but he did not appear to be injured.
As he was being led out, Routh’s daughter, Sara Routh, one of several relatives present, started screaming. She yelled vulgarities and told her father that she loved him and would fight to get him out of prison.
Sara Routh declined to comment after court adjourned.
Prosecutors said that on Sept. 15, 2024, Ryan Routh pointed his rifle, with its serial number scratched off, at a Secret Service agent who spotted him in the shrubbery at the Trump International Golf Club West Palm Beach. (Routh denied that he ever took aim at anyone.) The agent fired at him, and Routh fled without firing any shots of his own. Police stopped him about 45 minutes later, driving north on Interstate 95.
“Make no mistake: The defendant was going to kill Donald Trump,” Christopher B. Browne, one of the federal prosecutors, said during his closing argument. “The defendant was just one bullet away.”
It was the second assassination attempt against Trump last year, when he was running for a new term in office.
Opening statements in the trial took place the day after influential right-wing activist Charlie Kirk was fatally shot, adding to a national surge in political violence.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement after the verdict that Routh’s conviction illustrated the Justice Department’s “commitment to punishing those who engage in political violence.”
“This attempted assassination was not only an attack on our president, but an affront to our very nation itself,” she said.
Routh is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 18.
The rare trial of a would-be presidential assassin was made more unusual because Routh chose to represent himself without a lawyer. His decision made the trial a lopsided one from the start, when Judge Aileen Cannon cut off Routh’s opening statement for lack of relevance. Routh’s brief cross-examinations of prosecution witnesses and the small number of defense witnesses he called made the trial much shorter than expected, lasting just 12 days.
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