By DAVID FISCHER Associated Press
FORT PIERCE, Fla. (AP) — A man convicted of trying to assassinate President Donald Trump on a Florida golf course in 2024 was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison after a federal prosecutor said his crime was unacceptable “in this country or anywhere.”
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon pronounced Ryan Routh’s fate in the same Fort Pierce courtroom that erupted into chaos in September when he tried to stab himself shortly after jurors found him guilty on all counts.
“American democracy does not work when individuals take it into their own hands to eliminate candidates. That’s what this individual tried to do” Assistant U.S. Attorney John Shipley told the judge.
Defense attorney Martin L. Roth argued that “at the moment of truth, he chose not to pull the trigger.”
The judge pushed back, noting Routh’s history of arrests, to which Roth said, “He’s a complex person, I’ll give the court that, but he has a very good core.”
Routh then read from a rambling, 20-page statement. Cannon broke in, said none of what he was saying was relevant and gave him five more minutes to talk.
“I did everything I could and lived a good life,” Routh said, before the judge cut him off.
“Your plot to kill was deliberate and evil,” she said. “You are not a peaceful man. You are not a good man.”
She then issued his sentence: Life without parole, plus seven years on a gun charge. His sentences for his other three crimes will run concurrently.
In a statement on the social platform X, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi thanked prosecutors for ensuring that Routh “will never walk free again.”
“Ryan Routh’s heinous attempted assassination of President Trump was not only an attack on our President — it was a direct assault against our entire democratic system,” Bondi said.
Routh’s sentencing was initially scheduled for December. But Cannon agreed to move it back after Routh decided to use an attorney during the sentencing phase, instead of representing himself as he did for most of the trial.
Routh was convicted of trying to assassinate a major presidential candidate, using a firearm in furtherance of a crime, assaulting a federal officer, possessing a firearm as a felon and using a gun with a defaced serial number.
“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 said in their sentencing memo.
His defense attorney had asked for 20 years plus the mandatory seven for the gun conviction.
“The defendant is two weeks short of being sixty years old,” Roth wrote in a filing. “A just punishment would provide a sentence long enough to impose sufficient but not excessive punishment, and to allow defendant to experience freedom again as opposed to dying in prison.”
Prosecutors said Routh spent weeks plotting to kill Trump before aiming a rifle through shrubbery as the Republican presidential candidate played golf on Sept. 15, 2024, at his West Palm Beach country club.
At trial a Secret Service agent helping protect Trump on the golf course testified that he spotted Routh before Trump came into view. Routh aimed his rifle at the agent, who opened fire, causing Routh to drop his weapon and run away without firing a shot.
In the motion requesting an attorney, Routh offered to trade his life in a prisoner swap with people unjustly held in other countries and said an offer still stood for Trump to “take out his frustrations on my face.”
“Just a quarter of an inch further back and we all would not have to deal with all of this mess,” Routh wrote. He added, “but I always fail at everything (par for the course).”
In her decision granting Routh an attorney, Cannon chastised the “disrespectful charade” of Routh’s motion, saying it made a mockery of the proceedings. But the judge, nominated by Trump in 2020, said she wanted to err on the side of legal representation.
Cannon signed off last summer on Routh’s request to represent himself. The Supreme Court has held that defendants have the right to represent themselves in court proceedings as long as they can show a judge they are competent to waive their right to an attorney.
Routh’s former federal public defenders served as standby counsel and were present during the trial.
Routh had multiple previous felony convictions, including possession of stolen goods, and a large online footprint demonstrating disdain for Trump. In a self-published book, he encouraged Iran to assassinate him and at one point wrote that as a Trump voter, he must take part of the blame for electing him.