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The madman convicted of laying in wait with an assault rifle and trying to kill President Trump at his Florida golf course was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison.
Florida federal Judge Aileen Cannon threw the book at Ryan Routh after he was convicted in September for the Sept. 15, 2024 assassination attempt at a dramatic verdict reading where Routh’s daughter stormed out while cursing and Routh tried to stab himself with a pen.
Prosecutors argued Routh should get the maximum penalty of life imprisonment, claiming he still hasn’t accepted responsibility for trying to kill then then-presidential candidate.
“Routh remains unrepentant for his crimes, never apologized for the lives he put at risk, and his life demonstrates near-total disregard for law,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing papers last month.
Meanwhile, Routh’s lawyer, Martin Roth, asked for a more lenient 27 years behind bars, noting his client was just weeks away from his 60th birthday.
Roth said this penalty is a “just punishment” that would still allow Routh “to experience freedom again as opposed to dying in prison.”
Over the course of a two week trial last year, Routh insisted on representing himself without a lawyer and brought up to jurors such far off topics like prehistoric human history and world leaders including Nazi Germany dictator Adolf Hitler, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Cannon was forced to repeatedly rein in Routh’s wayward legal tactics during the trial.
During the dramatic final day of trial after the jurors announced they found Routh guilty of all the charges, Routh’s adult daughter stood up and started swearing within view of the jury before leaving in a huff. And as the panelists were exiting the courtroom, Routh grabbed a pen and starting trying to stab himself in the neck with it.
Prosecutors claimed Routh, a struggling roof contractor who lived in Hawaii, plotted for weeks before he camped out in a sniper’s nest with an SKS assault rifle on the edge of Trump International West Palm Beach golf course as Trump — then the GOP presidential nominee — was playing the links.
A Secret Service agent spotted Routh and opened fire, prompting the kook to flee.
With Post wires
English (US)