Federal prosecutors will pursue a charge of attempted assassination against a man accused of lurking with a gun near where former President Donald J. Trump was golfing in Florida last week, prosecutors said in a court hearing on Monday. Among the government’s evidence, they said, was a note the suspect had written suggesting that he had planned the attack.
Such a charge — which prosecutors said they would seek through a grand jury indictment — would carry a maximum possible penalty of life imprisonment.
United States Magistrate Judge Ryon M. McCabe, of the Federal District Court in West Palm Beach, Fla., granted the government’s request on Monday to keep the suspect, Ryan W. Routh, in jail without bond. So far, Mr. Routh has been charged with unlawful possession of a firearm and with possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.
Mr. Routh’s defense lawyers had argued that their client was not a flight risk and did not pose a serious threat to the community, but Judge McCabe disagreed.
Prosecutors revealed in a court filing and during the hearing on Monday that Mr. Routh, 58, reconnoitered the grounds of the Trump International Golf Club for a month before the apparent assassination attempt. On Sept. 15, Mr. Routh positioned himself outside the fence near the sixth hole of the course, where he and the barrel of his gun were spotted at about 1:30 p.m. by a Secret Service agent who was scouting one hole ahead of the former president’s group.
At the time he was spotted, prosecutors said, Mr. Routh was aligned directly with the sixth hole, with the intention of shooting Mr. Trump from a relatively short distance using a semiautomatic rifle. The rifle, equipped with a scope, was found abandoned at the scene; it had a round in the chamber and a total of 11 rounds loaded. Investigators found Mr. Routh’s fingerprint on the weapon.
“This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I failed you,” Mr. Routh wrote in a note that was placed inside a box that he left at a friend’s house, according to prosecutors. “I tried my best and gave it all the gumption I could muster,” the note continued. “It is up to you to finish the job; and I will offer $150,000 to whomever can complete the job.” Investigators found the note after he was arrested.
In the note, prosecutors said, Mr. Routh also wrote that Mr. Trump was unfit to be president. Mr. Routh had left the note at the house several months before the shooting, they said, an indication that he had been planning the assassination for a long time.
Last week, Mr. Routh was charged with possessing a firearm as a felon, which carries a prison sentence of up to 15 years, and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.
Prosecutors disclosed the new information in a memo written to persuade a federal judge to detain Mr. Routh indefinitely while he awaits trial. The filing paints the clearest picture to date of an itinerant and impoverished building contractor who repeatedly professed his willingness to die to defend Ukraine.
Law enforcement officials, searching Mr. Routh’s Nissan S.U.V., found “a handwritten list of dates in August, September and October 2024 and venues where the former president had appeared or was expected to be present,” according to the prosecutors’ memo.
Agents also found six cellphones — including one that contained a Google search of how to travel from Palm Beach County to Mexico — as well as 12 pairs of gloves, a Hawaii driver’s license in Mr. Routh’s name and a passport.
In their memo, prosecutors also noted Mr. Routh’s extensive criminal history, saying he had been convicted of multiple counts of possessing stolen goods.
In 2002, he was charged in North Carolina with possessing a weapon of mass death and destruction, a felony. Court documents describe the weapon as a “binary explosive with a 10-inch detonation and a blasting cap.” He was convicted and placed on supervised probation for 60 months.
The post U.S. to Seek Attempted Assassination Charge for Trump Golf Course Suspect appeared first on New York Times.
