Man gets 30 years in prison for attacking ex-Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband with a hammer

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The man who broke into the home of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi seeking to hold her hostage and bludgeoned her husband with a hammer was sentenced Friday to 30 years in prison.

But prosecutors later filed a motion saying the court failed to offer the defendant, David DePape, an opportunity “to speak or present any information to mitigate the sentence" as required by federal rule. They asked the court to reopen the sentencing portion to allow him that option. The court did not immediately respond.

A jury found DePape, 44, guilty in November of attempted kidnapping of a federal official and assault on the immediate family member of a federal official. Prosecutors had asked for a 40-year prison term.

The attack on Paul Pelosi, who was 82 at the time, was captured on police body camera video just days before the 2022 midterm elections and sent shockwaves through the political world. He suffered two head wounds including a skull fracture that was mended with plates and screws he will have for the rest of his life. His right arm and hand were also injured.

Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley sentenced DePape to 20 years for attempted kidnapping and 30 years for the assault, the maximum for both counts. The sentences will run concurrently. He also was given credit for the 18 months he has been in custody.

In its afternoon motion to the court, the U.S. attorney's office said DePape was not given the opportunity by the court to speak before being sentenced and that could present an issue.

DePape's defense, however, said they opposed bringing back their client to court and filed a notice of appeal, according to the filing. Prosecutors and defense counsel did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment late Friday.

The court has 14 days to correct a sentence resulting from error, prosecutors said.

DePape stood silently as he was sentenced and looked down at times. His public defense attorneys had asked the judge to sentence him to 14 years, pointing out that he was going through a difficult period in his life at the time of the attack, had undiagnosed mental health issues and had no prior criminal history.

At trial, DePape testified that he had planned to wear an inflatable unicorn costume and record his interrogation of the Democratic speaker, who was not at her San Francisco home at the time of the attack, to upload it online.

Ahead of the sentencing, one of his defense attorneys, Angela Chuang, told the judge to consider the prison terms being given to those who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

"The five most serious sentences for people who were convicted of seditious conspiracy, of literally conspiring to overthrow the government, range from 15 to 22 years," Chuang said.

Corley said the Jan. 6 analogy didn’t adequately reflect the seriousness of breaking into an official's private home. The attack may have a chilling effect on people seeking office in the future, she said.

“They have to think not only, ‘Am I willing to take that risk myself, but am I willing to risk my spouse, my children, my grandchildren?’” the judge said.

Prosecutors asked for the maximum sentence on each count and for DePape to serve 10 years concurrently, giving him a 40-year prison term.

Before sentencing, Christine Pelosi read her father and mother's victim statements, explaining how the violent attack changed their lives. In Paul Pelosi's statement, he explained that 18 months after the attack, he still gets headaches and vertigo and has fainted and fallen twice at home.

“Once you are attacked in such a public and political manner, with such threatening language, you always have to fear a copycat,” Nancy Pelosi said in her statement. “When I encourage people, especially women to consider running for office, physical threats to the family should not even be a factor, but they are.”

Both Paul and Nancy Pelosi said there are still bloodstains on the floor and other signs of the break-in at their home.

“Our home remains a heartbreaking crime scene,” Nancy Pelosi wrote.

DePape admitted during trial testimony that he broke into the Pelosis’ home Oct. 28, 2022, intending to hold the speaker hostage and “break her kneecaps” if she lied to him. He also admitted to bludgeoning Paul Pelosi with a hammer after police showed up, saying his plan to end what he viewed as government corruption was unraveling.

Defense attorneys argued DePape was motivated by his political beliefs, not because he wanted to interfere with Nancy Pelosi’s official duties as a member of Congress, making the charges against him invalid.

Chuang, one of his attorneys, said during closing arguments that DePape was estranged from his family and was caught up in conspiracy theories.

Sky Gonzalez, David DePape’s son, told reporters outside court the 30-year prison term was equivalent to getting a death sentence.

“I think that’s quite sad. I think that’s a really long time, because if you think about it, he’s already nearly 50. Basically, it’s just a death sentence," Gonzalez said before repeating the same conspiracy theories his father wrote about before the attack.

At trial DePape, a Canadian who moved to the U.S. more than 20 years ago, testified that he believed news outlets repeatedly lied about former President Donald Trump. In rants posted on a blog and online forum that were taken down after his arrest, DePape echoed the baseless, right-wing QAnon conspiracy theory that claims a cabal of devil-worshipping pedophiles runs the U.S. government.

Prosecutors said he had rope and zip ties with him, and detectives found body cameras, a computer and a tablet.

Paul Pelosi recalled at the trial how he was awakened by a large man bursting into the bedroom and asking, “Where’s Nancy?” He said that when he responded that his wife was in Washington, DePape said he would tie him up while they waited for her.

“It was a tremendous sense of shock to recognize that somebody had broken into the house, and looking at him and looking at the hammer and the ties, I recognized that I was in serious danger, so I tried to stay as calm as possible,” Pelosi told jurors.

DePape also is charged in state court with assault with a deadly weapon, elder abuse, residential burglary and other felonies. Jury selection in that trial is expected to start Wednesday.

Sergio Lopez, acting assistant agent in charge of the FBI, speaks to reporters after the sentencing of David DePape in federal court Friday, May 17, 2024, in San Francisco. DePape was found guilty last November of attempted kidnapping of a federal official and assault on Paul Pelosi, husband of former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

Sergio Lopez, acting assistant agent in charge of the FBI, speaks to reporters after the sentencing of David DePape in federal court Friday, May 17, 2024, in San Francisco. DePape was found guilty last November of attempted kidnapping of a federal official and assault on Paul Pelosi, husband of former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

Gypsy Taub, ex-partner of David DePape, speaks to reporters after DePape's sentencing in federal court Friday, May 17, 2024, in San Francisco. He was found guilty last November of attempted kidnapping of a federal official and assault on Paul Pelosi, husband of former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

FILE - Paul Pelosi attends a portrait unveiling ceremony for his wife, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., in Statuary Hall at the Capitol in Washington, Dec. 14, 2022. David DePape who was convicted last year in federal court of breaking into former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's San Francisco home will be sentenced in federal court Friday, May 16, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

FILE – David DePape is seen, Dec. 13, 2013, in Berkeley, Calif. DePape convicted of attempting to kidnap then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and attacking her husband with a hammer is set to be sentenced in federal court Friday, May 17, 2024. (Michael Short/San Francisco Chronicle via AP, File)

FILE - In this image taken from San Francisco Police Department body-camera video, the husband of former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Paul Pelosi, right, fights for control of a hammer with his assailant David DePape during a brutal attack in the couple's San Francisco home, on Oct. 28, 2022. DePape convicted of attempting to kidnap then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and attacking her husband with a hammer is set to be sentenced in federal court Friday, May 17, 2024. (San Francisco Police Department via AP, File)

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu worked to mend ties with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Friday and offered measured optimism about progress toward a cease-fire deal for Gaza as he neared the end of a contentious U.S. visit that put on display the growing American divisions over support for the Israeli-Hamas war.

At Trump's Florida Mar-a-Lago estate, where the two men met face-to-face for the first time in nearly four years, Netanyahu told journalists he wanted to see U.S.-mediated talks succeed for a cease-fire and release of hostages.

“I hope so,” Netanyahu said, when reporters asked if his U.S. trip had made progress. While Netanyahu at home is increasingly accused of resisting a deal to end the 9-month-old war to stave off the potential collapse of his far-right government when it ends, he said Friday he was "certainly eager to have one. And we’re working on it.”

As president, Trump went well beyond his predecessors in fulfilling Netanyahu’s top wishes from the United States. Yet relations soured after Netanyahu became one of the first world leaders to congratulate Joe Biden for his 2020 presidential victory, which Trump continues to deny.

The two men now have a strong interest in restoring their relationship, both for the political support their alliance brings and for the luster it gives each with their conservative supporters.

A beaming Trump was waiting for Netanyahu on the stone steps outside his private club and residence in Palm Beach, Florida. He warmly clasped the hands of the Israeli leader.

“We’ve always had a great relationship,” Trump insisted before journalists. Asked as the two sat down in a muraled room for talks if Netanyahu’s trip to Mar-a-Lago was repairing their bond, Trump responded, “It was never bad.”

For both men, Friday’s meeting was aimed at highlighting for their home audiences their depiction of themselves as strong leaders who have gotten big things done on the world stage, and can again.

Netanyahu’s Florida trip followed a fiery address to a joint meeting of Congress on Wednesday that defended his government’s conduct of the war and condemned American protesters galvanized by the killing of more than 39,000 Palestinians in the conflict.

On Thursday, Netanyahu had met in Washington with Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who appears on track to becoming the new Democratic presidential nominee after Biden decided to step out of the race. Both pressed the Israeli leader to work quickly to wrap up a deal to bring a cease-fire and release hostages held by Hamas.

Trump’s campaign said he pledged in Friday's meeting to “make every effort to bring peace to the Middle East” and combat antisemitism on college campuses if American voters elect him to the presidency in November.

Netanyahu handed Trump a framed photo that the Israeli leader said showed a child who has been held hostage by Hamas-led militants since the first hours of the war. “We’ll get it taken care of,” Trump assured him.

In a speech later Friday before a group of young Christian conservatives, Trump said he also asked Netanyahu during their meeting how “a Jewish person, or a person that loves Israel” can vote for Democrats.

He also laced into Harris for missing Netanyahu's speech and claimed she “doesn’t like Jewish people” and “doesn’t like Israel." Harris has been married to a Jewish man for a decade.

For Trump, the meeting was a chance to be cast as an ally and statesman, as well as to sharpen efforts by Republicans to portray themselves as the party most loyal to Israel.

Divisions among Americans over U.S. support for Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza have opened cracks in years of strong bipartisan backing for Israel, the biggest recipient of U.S. aid.

For Netanyahu, repairing relations with Trump is imperative given the prospect that Trump may once again become president of the United States, which is Israel’s vital arms supplier and protector.

One gamble for Netanyahu is whether he could get more of the terms he wants in any deal on a Gaza cease-fire and hostage release, and in his much hoped-for closing of a normalization deal with Saudi Arabia, if he waits out the Biden administration in hopes that Trump wins.

“Benjamin Netanyahu has spent much of his career in the last two decades in tethering himself to the Republican Party,” said Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. diplomat for Arab-Israeli negotiations, now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

For the next six months, that means “mending ties with an irascible, angry president," Miller said, meaning Trump.

Netanyahu and Trump last met at a September 2020 White House signing ceremony for the signature diplomatic achievement of both men’s political careers. It was an accord brokered by the Trump administration in which the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain agreed to establish normal diplomatic relations with Israel.

For Israel, it amounted to the two countries formally recognizing it for the first time. It was a major step in what Israel hoped would be an easing of tensions and a broadening of economic ties with its Arab neighbors.

In public postings and statements after his break with Netanyahu, Trump portrayed himself as having stuck his neck out for Israel as president, and Netanyahu paying him back with disloyalty.

He also has criticized Netanyahu on other points, faulting him as “not prepared” for the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks that started the war in Gaza, for example.

In his high-profile speech to Congress on Wednesday and again Friday at Mar-a-Lago, Netanyahu poured praise on Trump, calling the regional accords Trump helped broker historic and thanking him “for all the things he did for Israel.”

Netanyahu listed actions by the Trump administration long-sought by Israeli governments — the U.S. officially saying Israel had sovereignty over the Golan Heights, captured from Syria during a 1967 war; a tougher U.S. policy toward Iran; and Trump declaring Jerusalem the capital of Israel, breaking with longstanding U.S. policy that Jerusalem's status should be decided in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

“I appreciated that,” Trump told “Fox & Friends” on Thursday, referring to Netanyahu's praise.

Trump has repeatedly urged that Israel with U.S. support “finish the job” in Gaza and destroy Hamas, but he hasn’t elaborated on how.

Natalie Melzer in Tel Aviv, Israel, Adriana Gomez Licon in West Palm Beach, Florida, and Jill Colvin in New York contributed. Knickmeyer reported from Washington. Price reported from New York.

Follow the AP's coverage of the 2024 election at https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks at the Turning Point Believers' Summit, Friday, July 26, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump listens as he meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Friday, July 26, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Friday, July 26, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks while meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Friday, July 26, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks while meeting with Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Friday, July 26, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Friday, July 26, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Friday, July 26, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Friday, July 26, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

FILE - President Donald Trump, right, meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office, Sept. 15, 2020, at the White House in Washington. Trump is due to talk face-to-face with Netanyahu for the first time in nearly four years. The meeting Friday, July 26, 2024, at Mar-a-Lago will mend a break that has lasted since 2021. Trump at the time blasted Netanyahu for being one of the first leaders to congratulate President Joe Biden for his election victory. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)