Man obsessed with online conspiracy theories convicted of attacking Paul Pelosi

A jury on Thursday convicted David DePape of federal crimes for breaking into Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco home and hitting her husband with a hammer in an attack that raised fears of political violence ahead of the midterm elections from 2022.

The trial lasted four days and the jury reached its decision after approximately eight hours of deliberation. Mr. DePape, 43, faces a possible life sentence.

His lawyers did not dispute the evidence against him, including police body camera footage of the attack on Paul Pelosi, 83, as well as Mr. DePape’s own admissions to police and on the witness stand. But they argued to the jury that DePape’s beating of Pelosi while he was on a mission to kidnap his wife — then Speaker of the House of Representatives and second in line to the presidency — did not amount to federal crimes.

They said Mr. DePape acted not because of Ms. Pelosi’s official duties as a member of Congress — a mandatory part of the charges against him — but rather as part of a larger plot, fueled by online conspiracy theories, to target a cabal of so-called liberal elites he saw as a threat to American freedom.

If the case was never, in the words of one of Mr. DePape’s lawyers, a “whodunit,” the trial exposed the ugliness of American politics in an era of extreme polarization.

Mr. DePape, a lonely figure who once lived under a tree in a park in Berkeley, California, became obsessed with right-wing conspiracy theories like Pizzagate and QAnon, seemingly embracing the dehumanizing language about Mrs. Pelosi that conservative pundits and politicians have used for years.

In the aftermath of the attack, Republican commentators and elected officials promoted more conspiracy theories about the assault, raising questions about male prostitution or simply suggesting that the official accounts of the attack were not the whole story. And some on the right scoff at the beating of an octogenarian in his own home.

At a campaign rally Saturday in New Hampshire, for example, former President J. Donald Trump called Mrs Pelosi was a “crazy lunatic” to a crowd of supporters, adding: “What the hell was wrong with her husband? Let’s not ask.”

In a statement released shortly after the verdict was read in court, a spokesperson for Mrs. Pelosi said: “The Pelosi family is very proud of their father, who showed extraordinary calm and courage on the night of the attack a year ago and on the night of the attack. courtroom this week. Fortunately, Mr. Pelosi continues to make progress in his recovery.”

The attack, in the early morning hours of October 28, 2022, began when Mr. DePape burst through a back door of the Pelosi residence in San Francisco’s upscale Pacific Heights neighborhood. Inside, he discovered Mr. Pelosi asleep in his third-floor bedroom.

Standing in the bedroom doorway with a hammer in one hand and zip ties in the other, the assailant demanded to see Mrs. Pelosi, who was in Washington at the time.

“I realized I was in serious danger,” Pelosi told the jury Monday in his first public comments on the attack. He added: “I tried to stay as calm as possible.”

Mr. Pelosi told how, with his life in danger, he was able to secretly call 911 from his bathroom and make it clear that he was in danger without annoying Mr. DePape. When Mr. DePape said he would wait for Mrs. Pelosi to return to California but that he was tired and needed to sleep, Mr. Pelosi suggested he go downstairs, hoping the police were on their way.

“Why don’t we go down,” Mr. Pelosi recalled telling Mr. DePape. “And you can tie me up there and we can go to sleep.”

Shortly afterwards, police arrived to find Mr. DePape and Mr. Pelosi in the foyer, each with a hand on the gavel. When the officers demanded they drop the gun, Mr. DePape grabbed it, lunged at Mr. Pelosi and hit him in the head. Prosecutors showed a photo in court that showed Mr. Pelosi lying on the ground as a pool of blood collected around him.

When lawyers began their case on Tuesday, the first witness they called was Mr. DePape himself.

Mr. DePape said the catalyst for his online radicalization was Gamergate, an online campaign that began in 2014 as a backlash against female critics of the video game industry. He said he came to Gamergate years later while living in a one-bedroom apartment next to a garage in Richmond, California, with a folding futon, a large chair for playing video games and no bathroom.

Steve Bannon, the former Trump adviser, once tried to leverage the Gamergate community to connect cadres of isolated, mostly white men to Trump’s political movement. He once told Bloomberg Businessweek, “They come in through Gamergate or whatever and then they get interested in politics and Trump.”

Mr. DePape said Gamergate made him aware of the “truth,” and from there he became a supporter of Mr. Trump and a skeptic of the mainstream media. And he came to believe in an elaborate conspiracy theory that liberal elites were promoting pedophilia and spreading lies about Mr. Trump.

He referred to “they” when referring to the conspiracy theory. When asked who “they” were, he replied: “The easiest answer is Wall Street, the super rich and whoever, but there is reason to believe this goes back to the Jesuits and the Vatican and secret societies and the like .’

Getting to the heart of their strategy, defense lawyers repeatedly asked Mr. DePape, who sat in tears on the stand and apologized for hurting Mr. Pelosi, whether he had sought out Ms. Pelosi because of her official duties in Congress – such as whether she supported the administration. the Green New Deal or had said something during a speech or during a meeting with her constituents. No, he said every time.

He targeted Ms. Pelosi, he said, because of her role as leader of Democrats and her media appearances in which she spread “lies” about Mr. Trump. Mr. DePape said he planned to wear an inflatable unicorn costume — he brought two costumes with him the night of the attack — as he questioned Ms. Pelosi.

When he arrived at the Pelosi residence, Mr. DePape was carrying, among other things, a sleeping bag and two backpacks filled with zip-locks, a Nintendo Switch, body cameras, goji berries and $9,126 in cash — items he said he needed for his planned activities. travel across the country to track down the other targets on his list.

Among them, he said on the witness stand, were Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor of California; the actor Tom Hanks; Hunter Biden, the president’s son; and George Soros, the hedge fund billionaire.

“He didn’t go to that house because of anything she did as speaker of the House of Representatives,” Angela Chuang, a federal public defender and one of Mr. DePape’s lawyers, told the jury in her closing argument. “He went there to root out the corruption of the ruling class.”

As for Mr. Pelosi, Mr. DePape said he never intended to hurt him, and that the two had developed a “relationship” after the burglary and while Mr. DePape stood in his bedroom swinging a hammer.

“He was a very amiable gentleman,” Mr. DePape said. “And I just squeezed his shoulder, just to reassure him.”

Mr. DePape is also being tried in state court for several crimes, including attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon and elder abuse. The next hearing in that case is scheduled for November 29. But now that Mr. DePape has been convicted in federal court, prosecutors may settle or drop their case altogether, especially if Mr. DePape receives a lengthy prison sentence.

San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said in a statement Thursday: “We will consult with federal prosecutors and the victim in this case as we determine our next steps.”