David DePape found guilty on all charges in state trial for attack on Paul Pelosi

David DePape found guilty on all charges in state trial for attack on Paul Pelosi

Benjamin Hughes

DePape found guilty on all charges in state trial for Pelosi attack

DePape found guilty on all charges in state trial for Pelosi attack

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SAN FRANCISCO — A state jury on Friday found David DePape guilty on all charges related to his home invasion hammer attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi.

DePape was found guilty of the five counts he faced in the state trial, including aggravated kidnapping resulting in bodily harm or death, false imprisonment of an elder or dependent adult, threatening family of public officials, first degree residential burglary and preventing or dissuading a witness by force or threat. 

The jury reached a unanimous decision on all five counts, court officials said.

to dismiss three counts in the case against DePape — attempted murder, assault of an elder and assault with a deadly weapon — based on the public defender’s argument that the counts fell under double jeopardy.  

DePape was sentenced last month to 30 years in federal prison after a jury in November 2023 found him guilty of attempting to hold then-Speaker Pelosi hostage and assaulting her husband at the couple’s San Francisco mansion in Pacific Heights. 

The attack on then-82-year-old Paul Pelosi was captured on police bodycam video after officers responded to his 911 call and found him struggling with DePape who then bludgeoned Pelosi with a hammer. Just days before the 2022 midterm elections, the incident sent shockwaves through the political world and was attributed to the predictable effects of increasingly demonizing political rhetoric.

Opening statements in the state trial began in late May, a day after DePape’s federal sentencing was reopened to allow him to speak after a procedural error during his original sentencing.   

Lipson also noted that the guilty verdict on all five counts means that following his 30-year federal prison sentence, DePape could be facing spending the rest of his life in a California prison rather than being deported to Canada. 

Dave Pehling

Dave Pehling is website managing editor for CBS Bay Area. He started his journalism career doing freelance writing about music in the late 1990s, eventually working as a web writer, editor and producer for KTVU.com in 2003. He began his role with CBS Bay Area in 2015.

Source: cbsnews.com