David DePape was found guilty in a federal court in San Francisco

Thursday

of an attempt to kidnap former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi and attack her husband with a hammer after he broke into the couple’s San Francisco home last year.

The jury of

10 men and two women

spent

one day

they deliberated on the two federal charges before reaching a verdict, wrapping up a high-profile and sometimes bizarre trial that lasted just four days.

DePape sat quietly next to his lawyers as the verdict was read, but did not comment publicly on the decision. A man accused of attacking Paul Pelosi and fueling right-wing conspiracies faces a jury in San Francisco

The case captivated the nation for more than a year, with former President Trump and conservative commentators using the attack to rile up their far-right base and target the Democratic congresswoman, raising broader concerns about political violence and the safety of officials and their families.

The jurors reached their decision despite defense claims that DePape, 43, was not motivated by violence but by a network of political conspiracy theories he harbored against Democrats and other public figures and elected officials.

He faces a total of fifty years in prison.

Despite the overwhelming and well-publicized evidence against DePape via police body camera

footage video

and job interviews

as well as his multiple confessions of the attack

it was never a simple assault case, because the federal trial focused on his intentions, not whether he committed the violent act.

Still pending charges accuse DePape of attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, elder abuse, burglary and threats against a government official and their family. But the federal trial hinged on whether DePape was motivated to attack Paul Pelosi and attempt to kidnap Nancy Pelosi because of her official duties in Congress.

Suspect in attack on Paul Pelosi believes in conspiracies but did not try to kidnap Speaker of the House of Representatives, lawyer says

Prosecutors therefore had to prove “beyond a reasonable doubt that DePape intended to kidnap the lawmaker because of or in the performance of her official duties” and that he assaulted her husband in an attempt to obstruct, intimidate, or disrupt her official duties, or as retribution for her work.

Assistant U.S. Attys. Laura Vartain Horn and Helen Gilbert provided a clear picture of DePape’s “violent plan” on the night he traveled from his East Bay residence to the Pelosis’ Pacific Heights home in October 2022. They reviewed his recent Amazon purchases and Internet search history, including his paid subscription to a service that provided email and home addresses to demonstrate how he spent months preparing for the attack.

Prosecutors showed jurors the graphic police body camera

video footage

of DePape hitting Paul Pelosi with the hammer, fracturing the 82-year-old man’s skull and seriously injuring his right arm and left hand.

“This is the moment Paul Pelosi is attacked in the dead of night in his own home, lying on the floor in a pool of his own blood,” Gilbert said in her closing argument as a freeze-frame of the moment before the attack. was shown on the screens in the courtroom.

Jurors heard portions of a recorded police interview in which DePape said he was considering Nancy Pelosi

the

The ‘leader of the pack’ of the Democrats

,

and claimed he would “break her kneecaps” if she did not give in to corruption and other baseless claims of human trafficking and child abuse by public figures

.

He told the officer that the former chairman should drive himself to Congress, where other lawmakers could see the “consequence of being the most evil people on the planet.”

“She was the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives,” Gilbert said. “She was the head of the Democratic Party in the House of Representatives. That was her job. And because of her job, the defendant targeted her.”

Gilbert pointed out that DePape brought cable ties, rope and duct tape as additional evidence that he planned to take Nancy Pelosi hostage.

‘This is an attempted kidnapping. He tried to grab her and lock her up, and he brought the tools to do that,” she said. And when he learned that Nancy Pelosi was in Washington and wouldn’t be home for days, Gilbert argued that DePape had instead “inflicted the punishment he intended for Nancy Pelosi” on her husband.

“That’s retaliation,” she said

.

Paul Pelosi also gave chilling details about the burglary and attack, testing that he knew he was in “grave danger” and that his only hope was to call 911.

There are still bumps on my head. When I run my fingers, I can still feel dents and lumps, he told the judges. I’ve done my utmost not to relive this.”

Paul Pelosi testifies that he knew he was in ‘grave danger’ before the hammer attack

DePape’s attorneys, federal public defenders Jodi Linker and Angela Chuang, have never disputed that their client “did terrible things” and “committed serious crimes.” Instead, they argued that he was inspired by elaborate and unsubstantiated conspiracy theories that may have seemed “fake” but were nevertheless his deeply held beliefs.

In

a powerful closing argument

Chuang said the case was not about “who did it,” but about “why did it.”

“Mr. DePape did not go to that house because he had a certain fixation on just Nancy Pelosi,” she said. “He did not go there because of anything she did in her official capacity or as Speaker of the House of Representatives.”

The Pelosis’ home was just the first stop in an international plan to target other powerful people in America who he believed were involved in QAnon-style conspiracy theories about criminal activity, Chuang said.

His goal was

to “root out the corruption of the ruling class, the cabal, to stop the molestation of children and expose the truth to all.”

“They want you to believe that this was all about Nancy Pelosi, that he was singularly focused. But that’s not true,” Chuang said.

In testimony Tuesday, DePape rejected the argument that he planned to kidnap the former speaker or that he attacked her husband because of her role in Congress. He detailed his

descent into political extremism and far-right conspiracy theories

, claiming that the Pelosis’ house was just the first step in his broader anti-corruption plan. I didn’t want this to escalate into something true [Paul Pelosi] would be injured, he told the jury. moved this to the top

The defense also scrutinized Nancy Pelosi’s schedule in an attempt to convince the jury that the former speaker was not always involved in official business.

Their point was that DePape could not plead guilty to the federal charges related to the legislature’s official duties because there were many items on her agenda when she was involved in politics, such as fundraising for campaigns or lunches with advocacy groups or getting of a haircut. and not perform her work as

S

chair.

Chuang argued that DePape was inspired to break into the Pelosis’ home not because of a law Nancy Pelosi helped pass, or the way she ran the House, but because of her political activities with the national Democratic Party and what he described in police interviews as political attacks on Trump.

The man charged in the attack on Paul Pelosi turns to conspiracy theories during the federal trial

By comparison, Chuang explained that DePape planned to target the governor as well. Gavin Newsom for recently signing a gun control bill into law, more clearly an official duty.

“[Nancy Pelosi] has a work life, a personal life and a political life,” Chuang said, adding that although she was a member of Congress and speaker of the House of Representatives, “that doesn’t mean she always performs official duties.”

The argument was so strong, it seemed, that it took the jury 24 hours after closing arguments on Wednesday morning to reach a verdict. In testimony Tuesday, DePape rejected the argument that he planned to kidnap the former speaker or that he attacked her husband because of her role in Congress. He detailed his

descent into political extremism and far-right conspiracy theories

and claimed that the Pelosis’ house was just the first step in his broader anti-corruption plan. I didn’t want this to escalate into something true [Paul Pelosi] would be injured, he told the jury. A hearing is scheduled for November 29 to set a trial on his state charges.