DePape Found Guilty in Pelosi Attack

AP Photo/Eric Risberg

This is something that seemed to take an awfully long time to resolve considering that it looked, at least initially, as if it should have been an open-and-shut case. Nearly two years after the original incident, madman David DePaper was found guilty on Friday of all additional charges related to his hammer attack on Paul Pelosi in the former Speaker's San Francisco mansion. (How anyone affords a mansion like that on a public servant's salary will remain a topic for another day.) The jury began deliberations on Thursday and returned with the guilty verdicts the next day. The list of charges is quite serious and DePape could potentially be facing life in prison without parole, but sentencing hasn't even been scheduled yet. There seems to be no question that he actually did what he was accused of, but there are still so many questions hanging over the original incident that it may be a mystery for the ages. (ABC News)

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A California jury has found David DePape guilty on all charges in the state trial over the hammer attack against Paul Pelosi, following his federal conviction for the 2022 assault, prosecutors said.

The jury began deliberations Tuesday afternoon in San Francisco, with the court dark on Wednesday, before reaching a verdict Friday afternoon.

DePape, 44, was charged with false imprisonment of an elder by violence or menace, residential burglary, threatening a family member of a public official, dissuading a witness by force or threat and aggravated kidnapping, which carries a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

Keep in mind that David DePape was already sentenced twice for this crime last month. He was sentenced to thirty years. These are additional charges that the prosecutors tacked on later. They really seem to be throwing the book at him considering that he didn't even come close to killing Paul Pelosi and the damage to the home was relatively minor. We'll return to that part of the issue in a moment.

I won't take issue with most of the charges that DePape was hit with and it seems beyond question that he was guilty. I'm not a fan of charging people with "threatening a family member of a public official" because you shouldn't be allowed to threaten anyone in that fashion. There's nothing special about being the spouse of a member of Congress that should afford you greater protection under the law than anyone else. But that's how they roll in California, apparently.

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As noted above, the wheels of justice may have eventually turned in this case, but everything about the original incident leaves so many questions hanging in the air. And these are, at least to me, obvious questions that the majority of the mainstream media has studiously ignored from the beginning. For starters, why was an obvious liberal who displayed gay pride flags and support for the transgender agenda at the bus where he lived hunting down a prominent Democrat? Perhaps he was just out of his mind on drugs or simply insane (which doesn't seem unreasonable), but if that were the case, it seems like that would be taken into consideration during his prosecution and/or sentencing.

How did DePape enter the Pelosis' home to begin with? The conventional explanation is that he smashed out a window on the rear side of the dwelling. But if that was the case, why was the majority of the glass from the window found on the ground outside? At least to the untrained eye, it looked as if the window had been smashed out from the inside. He reportedly called out "Where's Nancy" when he entered, though I can find no record of him admitting to that. Was he really there looking for the former speaker or was he actually seeking out Paul Pelosi?

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And perhaps most curiously of all, when the police arrived and knocked on the door, why would Paul Pelosi have retreated back further into the home, positioning himself near DePape if he was in the middle of being threatened and attacked? None of this makes any sense and reasonable answers to these questions have yet to be offered.

Finally, as mentioned above, I'm expecting to see the judge really bring the hammer down on DePape at sentencing. (No pun intended.) They already hit him with thirty years and now more will be added. If you remove the victim's famous surname from the equation, this crime amounts to a case of breaking and entering (maybe) and simple assault without a firearm. Last month, a man from New Jersey was sentenced after being found guilty of assault with a blunt object, aggravated sexual assault, and theft. He was given fifteen years. How is David DePape looking at the possibility of life without parole for his crimes? You can call me paranoid or a conspiracy theorist if you like, but I think there's a lot more going on here than meets the eye.

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Ed Morrissey 12:40 PM | November 21, 2024
David Strom 11:20 AM | November 21, 2024
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