David DePape, who was convicted of federal crimes for breaking into Nancy Pelosi’s residence two years ago and beating her husband with a hammer, apologized Tuesday for the attack and expressed his remorse, as a judge briefly considered a more lenient prison sentence.
“I should have left the house when I found out Nancy Pelosi wasn’t there,” he said. “I will never do something violent like that again.”
Mr. DePape made the comments in a federal courtroom in San Francisco, where the judge in the case reopened his sentencing proceedings, two weeks after the original conviction. DePape to 30 years in federal prison.
Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley realized after imposing the sentence that she had made a mistake in doing so without first asking Mr. DePape if he wanted to make a statement. Judge Corley brought the parties back into court Tuesday to give Mr. DePape a chance to speak.
The judge appeared unmoved by Mr. DePape’s apology. After hearing from him on Tuesday, she again gave Mr. DePape a 30-year sentence, the maximum allowed by law.
Mr. DePape was convicted in November of two federal crimes: attempted kidnapping of a federal agent and assault on an immediate family member of a federal official.
Mr. DePape said he was in a dark situation when he committed the crimes, but his mental state had since improved. “I was able to reconnect with my mother and other members of my family, which allowed me to move forward,” he told the court.
Tuesday’s hearing was held during a recess in Mr. DePape’s state criminal trial, which began last week with jury selection. In state court, Mr. DePape faces several criminal charges related to the attack, including attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon and elder abuse. Opening statements are expected to begin Wednesday morning. If convicted at this trial, Mr. DePape faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
As she did at the first sentencing hearing, Judge Corley said Tuesday that her sentence reflected both the seriousness of the crime and the need to deter politically motivated violence. She said she wanted to make sure “there were no copycats.”
“The message needs to be sent that this is absolutely unacceptable to our democracy,” Judge Corley said.
After Mr. DePape was initially sentenced on May 17, his federal public defenders quickly appealed and objected to the judge’s reopening of the sentencing hearing. They argued that the case should immediately go to an appeals court and that if a new sentence was handed down, it should be handled by another judge, “to preserve the appearance of justice.”
“The court cannot reasonably be expected to set aside its previously expressed findings to fairly and appropriately blame Mr. DePape,” they wrote in a legal filing.
The attack on the Pelosis’ San Francisco home took place early in the morning of October 1, 2017. On December 22, less than three weeks before the midterm elections, it raised fears of politically motivated violence at a particularly divided in America.
Mr. DePape, who was 42 at the time, broke into the house through a back door looking for Ms. Pelosi, who was then speaker of the House and second in line to the presidency. After entering the house, Mr. DePape repeatedly shouted, “Where is Nancy?”
MS. Pelosi was in Washington, D.C., and Mr. DePape instead met with Paul Pelosi, asleep in the couple’s bedroom. At last year’s trial, Mr. Pelosi, who was 82 at the time of the attack, recounted how he was able to surreptitiously call 911 from his bathroom. When the police arrived, they found Mr. Pelosi and Mr. DePape standing in the lobby, each with one hand on a large gavel that Mr. DePape had brought with him.
It was at that point, according to trial testimony and police body-worn camera footage, that Mr. DePape was able to take control of the gavel and hit Mr. Pelosi in the head, leaving him in the lurch. ground, bloody. Mr. Pelosi underwent surgery for two skull fractures and spent six days in hospital.
A spokesperson for Ms. Pelosi declined Tuesday to comment on the new conviction, saying her office would wait for the state trial verdict to provide another response.
Mr. DePape was a solitary figure, living on the fringes of society in the San Francisco Bay Area. For a time, he slept under a tree in a park in Berkeley, California. In the years leading up to the attack, he spent a lot of time immersed in online theories like Pizzagate and QAnon.
Before announcing the sentence Tuesday, Judge Corley acknowledged that Mr. DePape did not have a criminal or violent record before breaking into the Pelosis’ home. The judge told him he was “particularly vulnerable” to what he was hearing in the media.