Vance Boelter, the Minnesota man accused of carrying out a deadly attack targeting state lawmakers in June, pleaded not guilty in federal court Thursday morning.
Mr. Boelter, 58, said nothing of substance during a brief appearance before Judge Dulce Foster in the federal courthouse in Minneapolis.
A not-guilty plea is a standard step at this point in a federal criminal case and does not preclude prosecutors and defense lawyers from negotiating a plea deal.
Mr. Boelter was taken into custody on June 15 after a frantic manhunt. He is accused of perpetrating shooting attacks the night before at the homes of two Democratic state legislators, which prosecutors said were part of a broader plot against elected officials.
According to the authorities, Mr. Boelter killed Representative Melissa Hortman, a former speaker of the Minnesota House, along with her husband Mark and their dog Gilbert. Hours earlier, investigators said, he shot Senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, who were gravely wounded but survived.
State and federal prosecutors have charged Mr. Boelter with numerous felonies. Together, the charges include murder, attempted murder, stalking and firearms offenses. He is expected to go on trial first in federal court, and then later in state court.
Harry Jacobs, one of the federal prosecutors handling the case, asked the judge on Thursday to designate the matter as a complex case because of the volume of evidence that has been collected. That designation — which the judge granted — gives the government more time than usual to provide its evidence to the defense team in preparation for trial.
The government agreed to share its evidence with Mr. Boelter’s lawyers within 60 days.
The acting U.S. attorney in Minnesota, Joseph H. Thompson, said Mr. Boelter did extensive research and planning before carrying out “targeted political assassinations the likes of which have never been seen in Minnesota.” Federal prosecutors are weighing whether to seek the death penalty.
According to his federal indictment, Mr. Boelter approached the houses of the two legislators in a vehicle outfitted to resemble a police cruiser. He claimed to be a law enforcement officer in order to gain entry into the victims’ homes.
Mr. Boelter, a Christian missionary with a peripatetic career that recently included work collecting bodies for funeral homes, sent a text message to his wife and children hours after the shootings in which he wrote: “Dad went to war last night.”
In an interview with The New York Times conducted through an online messaging system available to inmates at the Sherburne County Jail, Mr. Boelter neither admitted nor denied having carried out the shootings.
But he wrote cryptically about having conducted “a 2-year long undercover investigation” that led to the events of June 14.
According to a search warrant filed in the federal case, when Mr. Boelter was still at large he wrote a letter to the F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, admitting that he had carried out the shootings. The rambling, largely nonsensical letter included references to Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota and the state’s two U.S. Senate seats, the warrant said.
Ernesto Londoño is a Times reporter based in Minnesota, covering news in the Midwest and drug use and counternarcotics policy.
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