A man found lurking with a gun near Donald Trump’s Florida golf course last year was found guilty yesterday of attempted assassination of a major presidential candidate, US Attorney General Pam Bondi said on social media.
A jury found that Ryan Routh, 59, intended to kill Trump, then a former US president and Republican presidential candidate, when he pointed a rifle through a fence while Trump was golfing at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach.
He was also found guilty on the four other charges he faced, including impeding a federal agent and weapons offenses. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Routh appeared to try to stab himself with a pen several times after the verdict was revealed in court and had to be restrained by US marshals, according to US media reports. His daughter Sara also yelled in court that her father had not hurt anyone and she would get him out of prison.
Routh fled from the golf course without firing a shot after a US Secret Service agent patrolling the course ahead of Trump spotted Routh and the rifle and opened fire, according to witness testimony in the case.
“This plot was carefully crafted and deadly serious,” prosecutor John Shipley said at the start of the trial, adding that without the intervention of the Secret Service agent, “Donald Trump would not be alive.”
“Today’s guilty verdict against would-be Trump assassin Ryan Routh illustrates the Department of Justice’s commitment to punishing those who engage in political violence,” Bondi said in a statement on X. “This attempted assassination was not only an attack on our President, but an affront to our very nation itself.”
Trump, in a post on his Truth Social platform, lauded the verdict, adding, “This was an evil man with an evil intention, and they caught him.”
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