
The man sentenced to 30 years in a federal prison for the hammer attack on the husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison without the possibility of parole after a separate state trial.
In June, a jury in San Francisco found defendant David DePape guilty of charges including aggravated kidnapping and assault on a family member of a federal official.
Before sentencing the DePape attacker to life in prison on the kidnapping charge, Judge Harry Dorfman rejected defense attorneys' arguments for a new state trial in the 2022 attack on Paul Pelosi, who was 82 at the time.
"My goal is that DePape never gets out of prison, he never gets parole," Judge Dorfman said as he handed down the sentence. “I feel no sympathy for you. I feel sympathy for the victim in this case, who is lucky to be alive," the judge said afterwards.
Adam Lipson, a San Francisco public defender, had asked Judge Dorfman to consider defendant DePape's mental health and isolation, which had made his client susceptible to online propaganda.
"This is a man who has always been a peaceful, law-abiding person until this case," attorney Lipson said before the sentence was handed down.
The defendant was given the opportunity to address the court before the sentence was pronounced. Dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit, he spoke at length about 9/11, calling it an inside job, saying that his ex-wife had been replaced with a sosi and that state-sponsored defense attorneys were conspired against him.
In May, a federal judge sentenced 44-year-old David DePape to 30 years in prison, who in 2022 broke into the home of former Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, and attacked her husband with a hammer. Paul Pelosi.
In a politically motivated attack, David DePape forced his way into Ms. Pelosi's home in San Francisco on October 28, 2022, a week before that year's US congressional elections. At the time of the attack, Ms. Pelosi was in Washington.
The defendant admitted during the trial that his intention was to take hostage Mrs. Pelosi, who was then the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the second highest official in line for the presidency of the United States.
The 44-year-old struck Paul Pelosi in the head with a hammer before police arrived at the scene and subdued him.
Paul Pelosi, 82 at the time, suffered a fractured skull and other injuries that have left him, he said in a letter to the judge before the May ruling. Pelosi said she continues to experience dizziness, balance problems and nerve damage in her left hand.