Man Obsessed With Online Conspiracy Theories Convicted in Paul Pelosi Attack
Category: News & Politics
Via: hallux • last year • 6 commentsBy: Holly Secon, Tim Arango and Soumya Karlamangla - NYT
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
A jury on Thursday convicted David DePape of federal crimes for breaking into the San Francisco home of Nancy Pelosi and beating her husband with a hammer in an attack last year that raised fears of political violence ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.
The jury reached its decision after deliberating for roughly eight hours following a trial that lasted four days. Mr. DePape’s lawyers did not contest the evidence against him, which included police body camera video of the attack on Paul Pelosi and Mr. DePape’s own admissions to the police and on the witness stand.
Mr. DePape, 43, faces a possible sentence of life in prison.
Defense lawyers had argued to the jury that Mr. DePape’s bludgeoning of Mr. Pelosi, 83, while on a mission to kidnap his wife — then the speaker of the House and second in line to the presidency — did not amount to federal crimes.
If the case was never, in the words of one of Mr. DePape’s lawyers, “a whodunit,” the trial laid bare the ugliness of American politics in an age of extreme polarization.
Mr. DePape, a solitary figure who once lived under a tree in a Berkeley, Calif., park, became obsessed with right-wing conspiracy theories like Pizzagate and QAnon, and seemingly embraced the dehumanizing language about Ms. Pelosi that conservative pundits and politicians had used for years.
In the aftermath of the attack, Republican commentators and elected officials promoted more conspiracy theories about the beating, 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 have mocked the beating of an octogenarian in his own home, provoking laughs at campaign rallies.
At a rally on Saturday in New Hampshire, for example, former President J. Donald Trump called Ms. Pelosi a “crazed lunatic” to a crowd of supporters, and added: “What the hell was going on with her husband? Let’s not ask.”
The attack, in the predawn hours of Oct. 28, 2022, began with Mr. DePape busting through a back door of the Pelosi residence in the upscale Pacific Heights neighborhood of San Francisco. Inside, he discovered Mr. Pelosi asleep in his third-floor bedroom. Standing in the doorway of the bedroom with a hammer in one hand and zip ties in another, he demanded to see Ms. Pelosi, who was in Washington at the time.
“I recognized I was in serious danger,” Mr. Pelosi told the jury on Monday, in his first public comments about the attack. He added, “I tried to stay as calm as possible.”
With his life in jeopardy, Mr. Pelosi recounted how he was able to surreptitiously call 911 from his bathroom and convey that he was in danger without aggravating Mr. DePape. When Mr. DePape said that he would wait for Ms. Pelosi to return to California but that he was tired and needed to sleep, Mr. Pelosi suggested they go downstairs, in the hope that the police were on their way.
“Why don’t we go downstairs,” Mr. Pelosi recalled saying to Mr. DePape. “And you can tie me up there and we can go to sleep.”
When defense 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-room apartment attached to a garage in Richmond, Calif., that had a fold-up futon, a large chair for playing video games and no bathroom.
Steve Bannon, the former Trump adviser, once tried to harness the community of Gamergate to connect the cadres of isolated, mostly white men to Mr. Trump’s political movement. He once told Bloomberg Businessweek, “They come in through Gamergate or whatever and then get turned on to politics and Trump.”
Mr. DePape said Gamergate awakened him to 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 a vast conspiracy theory that liberal elites were promoting pedophilia and spreading lies about Mr. Trump.
Getting to the heart of their strategy, defense lawyers repeatedly asked Mr. DePape, who was tearful on the stand and apologized for hurting Mr. Pelosi, if he sought out Ms. Pelosi because of her official congressional duties — whether it was because she supported the Green New Deal or said something in a floor speech or while meeting with her constituents. No, he said each time.
He targeted Ms. Pelosi, he said, because of her role as a leader of the Democrats, and her media appearances in which she pushed “lies” about Mr. Trump. Mr. DePape said he planned to wear an inflatable unicorn costume — he brought two costumes with him on the night of the attack — while questioning Ms. Pelosi.
When he arrived at the Pelosi residence, Mr. DePape was carrying a sleeping bag and two backpacks stuffed with zip ties, a Nintendo Switch, body cameras, goji berries and $9,126 in cash, among other things — items he said he needed for his planned cross-country trip to hunt down the other targets on his list.
“He didn’t go to that house because of anything she did as speaker of the House,” 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 “rapport” after the break-in and while Mr. DePape stood in his bedroom wielding a hammer.
“He was a very amiable gentleman,” Mr. DePape said. “And I just gave him a squeeze on the shoulder just to be reassuring.”
Mr. DePape also faces trial in state court on several felonies, including attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon and elder abuse. The next hearing in that case is scheduled for Nov. 29, when a judge is likely to set a trial date.
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Not to worry David DePape, T-shirts emblazoned with your image tagged FREE the HOSTAGE will be on sale by the weekend @truthsocial. You have been earmarked to receive .047% of the profits.
true believer listens to rwnj media and acts to attain the 2nd level of trumpism.
“You have been earmarked to receive .047% of the profits.”
Never has ones fifteen minutes meant so little to the martyr du jour.
Yes, and we also remember all of the irresponsible dumbass crazy conspiracy theories that were spread hereabouts when it happened.
The joyous celebrations about Mr Pelosi's "Boyfriend" and a "Lovers Quarrel" and other such far rightwing MAGA nonsense. Uh Huh!
It was disgusting and typical of the deplorables.
Trump got laughs from California GOP MAGAs after ripping Nancy Pelosi, mocking husband, Paul over a brutal hammer attack on him.
https:// news.yahoo.com/trumps-appalli ng-paul-pelosi-dig-055520881.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAACclvsVlLt8o3cbbeKvPAiwZ8iYBo-FCX2bLWvYgUJNmsNpEbLSz7NCcfx5H7Sx1c7IoSvOp85m6OH6kdbea2PsCcB7CAfZ2I6OXIS93UWpYvPXJOpbiGNHJLkfZGtpQxGyDQ8DykqZQNeZ0OPw-I4QJtTt_LGIdgzS5EUBar10y … …
My idea of fun would be Trump in a cell with a Jan. 6 insurrectionist who knows HE'LL NEVER BE PARDONED!
Laugh along with me.