SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The man who was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison for attacking former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband with a hammer in their California home received a life sentence without possibility on Tuesday. probation, following a separate sentence in the state. rehearsal.

In June, a San Francisco jury found David DePape guilty of charges including aggravated kidnapping, first-degree robbery and false imprisonment of an elderly person.

Before sentencing DePape to life in prison for the kidnapping conviction, Judge Harry Dorfman rejected defense attorneys’ arguments that he be granted a new state trial for the 2022 attack on Paul Pelosiwho at that time was 82 years old.

“My intention is that Mr. DePape will never be released from prison, he will never be eligible for parole,” Dorfman said as he handed out the punishment. He later said: “I have no sympathy for you. “I feel sympathy for the victim in this case, who is lucky to be alive.”

Adam Lipson, a San Francisco deputy public defender, had asked Dorfman to consider DePape’s mental health and isolation that made him susceptible to online propaganda.

“This is a man who has always been a peaceful, law-abiding person until his activation,” Lipson said before the punishment was handed down.

When given the opportunity to address the court before his sentencing, DePape, dressed in prison orange and with his brown hair in a ponytail, spoke at length about 9/11 being an inside job and that his ex-wife was replaced by a double. and his government-provided lawyers conspire against him.

“I’m a psychic,” DePape told the court, reading from sheets of paper. “The more I meditate, the more psychic I become.”

The judge interrupted DePape several times to ask if he wanted to address the jury’s verdict or his conduct on the night of the attack, but DePape ignored the offers.

In a letter read in court by the victim’s daughter, Christine Pelosi, Paul Pelosi asked for the maximum sentence, stating that the “last peaceful sleep” had ended abruptly “when the defendant violently broke into my home, broke into my bedroom and He stood in front of me.” my bed with a hammer and zip ties demanding to see my wife, yelling ‘Where’s Nancy?’”

He said the attack left him with blows to the head, a metal plate, dizziness and nerve damage in his left hand. Sleeping alone at home evokes memories of the attack, he said.

In a statement after Tuesday’s sentencing, the Pelosi family said that after two grueling years, “legal justice has been served.”

“Today’s sentence to life in prison without parole gives our dad some measure of legal justice and, we hope, a message to others that political violence against elected officials or their family members will not be tolerated, minimized or condoned,” it said. the statement. “Each of us must do our part to build a peaceful democracy.”

Previously, a federal jury convicted DePape of assaulting a family member of a federal official and attempting to kidnap a federal official. In May he was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison.

Although DePape expressed remorse for his actions at the federal sentencing, he did not do so Tuesday. The judges in both cases said they could not ignore the seriousness of attacking elected officials.

On Tuesday, Judge Dorfman also sentenced DePape to additional years on the other charges, but all sentences, including the federal one, will run concurrently. He said that if an appeals court overturns his sentence of life in prison without parole, he will ask that the case be returned to his court for resentencing.

Lipson told reporters after the hearing that he will appeal the ruling. “This was a really tragic ending to a tragic story,” he said.

The prosecutors, San Francisco Assistant District Attorneys Sean Connolly and Phoebe Maffei, said in a statement that the sentence reflects the severity of DePape’s conduct and the harm he inflicted on an innocent man.

“In such cases there is no need to rejoice. “There are no winners,” he said.

The defense argued that the state trial amounted to double jeopardy, saying that although the state and federal counts were not exactly the same, the two cases stemmed from the same act. The judge dismissed some of the state charges but upheld others that were not covered by the federal case.

The October 28, 2022 attack on Paul Pelosi was captured on police body camera video just days before the midterm elections and shocked the political world. He suffered head injuries, including a skull fracture that was repaired with plates and screws.

DePape, a Canadian citizen who has lived in the United States for years, admitted during his federal trial that he planned to hold Nancy Pelosi hostage, record her interrogation and “break her kneecaps” if she did not admit to the lies she had told. said he spoke about “Russiagate,” a reference to the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign.

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