The man accused of firebombing the governor of Pennsylvania’s residence this year agreed to a plea deal on Tuesday that would send him to prison for 25 to 50 years.
The suspect — Cody A. Balmer, 38, of Harrisburg, Pa. — entered a guilty plea on charges of attempted first-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated arson and other charges at the Dauphin County courthouse, not far from where the attack took place on the first night of Passover, a major Jewish holiday. Gov. Josh Shapiro, who is Jewish, had celebrated the holiday with dozens of friends and relatives at the residence a few hours before the fire broke out.
No one was injured in the arson attack, which severely damaged two rooms at the residence and forced Mr. Shapiro, his wife and their four children to evacuate from the building.
As part of the plea agreement, Mr. Balmer agreed to pay $100,000 in restitution.
Mr. Balmer, wearing a brown prison jumpsuit with his hands and feet chained, reviewed the agreement with his lawyer and the Dauphin County district attorney, Francis Chardo, who showed surveillance footage of the crime. He then entered the plea.
According to prosecutors, Mr. Balmer climbed over a seven-foot fence that surrounds the official residence, broke two windows with a hammer and threw in Molotov cocktails that he made from beer bottles. One video showed the residence bursting with flames and Mr. Balmer fleeing the scene. Another video showed Mr. Balmer try to use a short-handled sledgehammer to break open the door leading to the family quarters.
Mr. Balmer had admitted to state police that he would have attacked Mr. Shapiro with the sledgehammer if he had come across him that night.A victim impact statement from Mr. Shapiro and his wife, Lori, was read to the court by Mr. Chardo. The statement said that the Shapiros knew they could be victims of extremists, but that they had “felt protected because of the state police presence in their lives,” especially at the official residence.
The attack had left them “feeling exposed.”
“Once it happened in the governor’s residence, we felt unsafe everywhere,” the statement continued.
In the six months since the attack, the state has carried out security improvements to the governor’s residence, which sits along the Susquehanna River, including extending the height of the perimeter fence. But findings from a security review at the governor’s residence have not been made public out of concern that they will reveal sensitive information.
The attack was one in a recent series of high-profile attacks in the United States, many of them politically motivated, dating back at least to the attempt on President Trump’s life in western Pennsylvania in July 2024.
Since then, a health care executive was shot to death on a Manhattan street; two employees of the Israeli embassy in Washington were shot and killed; a gunman in Minnesota killed one legislator and her husband in their home and wounded another and his wife in theirs; a man who blamed football for his brain injuries shot and killed four people at the building that houses the N.F.L.’s offices in New York; and last month, the right-wing activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed while speaking at a college in Utah.
“It’s important that none of us grow numb to it or accept this as the normal course of doing business as political leaders,” Mr. Shapiro said at a news conference later Tuesday. He explained, with his wife at his side, how the attack had shaken his family and how the ongoing repairs to the governor’s residence serve as a reminder of the fear they experienced.
Mr. Shapiro praised the firefighters and police who responded that night, and the work of Mr. Chardo in securing the plea deal, calling the sentencing of Mr. Balmer just.
Mr. Balmer, who has a lengthy history of mental illness, claimed responsibility for the attack almost immediately after it happened, telling a 911 operator that he was angry about Mr. Shapiro’s stance on the war in Gaza, which Mr. Balmer said had led to the deaths of Palestinians.
Mr. Balmer’s social media posts suggested that he did not have any particular ideology so much as a deep cynicism. In some posts, he expressed a libertarian bent that bordered on anarchism; in others he praised violence. His Facebook posts included rants about women, the pharmaceutical industry and the government.
Mr. Balmer did not apologize and did not address the court other to answer questions from Judge Deborah Curcillo about whether he understood the terms of the agreement. His court-appointed lawyer, Bryan Walk, said his client hoped to receive mental-illness treatment in prison.
In a statement to the court, read by an assistant public defender, Mr. Balmer’s parents apologized to Mr. Shapiro and his wife, blaming their son’s manic depression for the attack. He had spiraled down after discontinuing his medication, they said, which they speculated he had done because he felt better and did not need it anymore. They said he was more than what he appeared today — a “loving father” who was involved in his children’s lives.
To their son, the statement read: “Cody, this has deeply affected all of us. We felt pain and confusion as you lost your way.”
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