The man who is already serving 30 years in federal prison for the home invasion hammer attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband in 2022 was found guilty on state charges on Friday and now faces life in prison.
A federal jury found David DePape guilty on multiple charges last year for the October 28, 2022, attack on Paul Pelosi, as CrimeOnline reported. Pelosi suffered a skull fracture in early morning attack. DePape testified during the trial that he only wanted to talk with Nancy Pelosi about Russian interference in the 2016 elections and that he attacked her husband “because my plan was basically ruined.”
Nancy Pelosi was still in Washington, D.C., when DePape forced his way into the couple’s San Francisco home. Pelosi said DePape burst through his bedroom door holding a knife and zip ties, repeatedly demanding, “Where’s Nancy?” Pelosi secretly called 911, and part of the attack was recorded on a responding officer’s body camera.
DePape was found guilty on federal charges of assaulting a federal official’s family member and attempting to kidnap a federal official — something he told investigators he had planned to do. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison last month.
A San Francisco jury found him guilty on Friday of first degree burglary, false imprisonment of an elder, threatening a family member of a public official, and aggravated kidnapping, Politico reported.
Prior to the trial, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Harry Dorfman dismissed several state charges, including attempted murder, elder abuse, and assault with a deadly weapon, agreeing with DePape’s attorney that those charges represented double jeopardy, since he’d already been tried in federal court.
Defense attorneys and prosecutors continued sparring over the charges in their closing arguments. Public defender Adam Lipson argued that DePape could not have kidnapped Pelosi because the charge requires the defendant “to exact from another person money or something valuable.” Assistant District Attorney Phoebe Maffei countered that DePape admitted in federal court that he planned to get a video of Nancy Pelosi confessing to what he believed were crimes and then post it on the internet.
“There is inherent value in a video of the Speaker of the House confessing to crimes in her own home,” Maffei said.
Lipson also defended his client by saying he’d gone “down the rabbit hole of propaganda and conspiracy theories.” And in fact, DePape’s former significant other, well-known Bay Area activist and conspiracy theorist Gypsy Taub, was ejected from the court room earlier in the trial after she was found handing out cards promoting her conspiracy theory website. The cards were also found in a women’s bathroom, where the website address was scrawled on a wall in marker.
Nancy Pelosi’s office issued a statement after the verdict praising Paul Pelosi’s “bravery, which shone through again on the witness stand in this trial just as it did when he saved his own life on the night of the attack,” the Associated Press reported.
Lipson said he was disappointed with the verdict and planned to appeal.
DePape, who is Canadian, will likely be deported after serving his time.
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[Featured image: FILE – This image from video from police body-worn camera footage, released by the San Francisco Police Department, shows Paul Pelosi, right, fighting for control of a hammer with his assailant, David DePape, during a attack at Pelosi’s home in San Francisco on Oct. 28, 2022.( San Francisco Police Department via AP, File)]
