(San Francisco) The trial of the attacker of the husband of former Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi ended Wednesday with a balancing act from his defense, which wishes to convince that David DePape was driven by conspiracy theories and was not did not want to directly attack a symbol of the American state.
Jurors in San Francisco federal court must now deliberate to decide the fate of this 43-year-old man, prosecuted for assaulting a member of the family of a federal official, and also attempted kidnapping of Mme Pelosi.
Charges which could earn him up to life imprisonment.
At the end of October 2022, a few days before the American mid-term elections, Mr. DePape fractured Paul Pelosi’s skull with a hammer, after entering the couple’s home in San Francisco.
Equipped with rope, gloves and duct tape, he initially wanted to attack his wife Nancy Pelosi, who was at the time the third person in the American state, as Speaker of the House of Representatives. She was in Washington at the time.
He admitted to investigators that he planned to “break her kneecaps” if she did not admit to the “lies” of the Democratic camp.
In the months preceding his action, this ex-nudist activist had shared numerous conspiracy theories on social networks, asserting for example that the American elites are corrupt and indulge in child crime, or that the presidential election of 2020 had been stolen from Donald Trump.
Mr. DePape “deliberately targeted” M.me Pelosi “because of her work, her role in our political system,” argued prosecutor Helen Gilbert, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
“Would he have gone to the Pelosi home if Nancy Pelosi was not a member of Congress? […] What if she was an ordinary citizen? “, she asked.
Opposite, Mr. DePape’s defense retorted that Mr. DePape’s official functionme Pelosi mattered little, because the defendant was mired in his conspiratorial beliefs and was planning a broader crusade against the alleged corruption of America’s elites.
His nebulous plan included other targets, including California Governor Gavin Newsom, the president’s son Hunter Biden and actor Tom Hanks.
“Mr. DePape has done horrible things […]he committed serious crimes that night,” admitted his lawyer Angela Chuang.
“But he did not commit these two crimes” retained by the prosecution, linked to the official function of Mr.me Pelosi, she told the jurors. “Don’t get drawn into the culture war like DePape did. Gain some height. »
After this federal trial, David DePape must also be tried separately by Californian courts.