A Canadian man who broke into former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi‘s home and bludgeoned her husband with a hammer continued to spew conspiracy theories as he was sentenced for a second time.
David DePape, 44, was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison without the possibility of parole following a separate state trial.
A San Francisco jury in June found him guilty of charges including aggravated kidnapping, first-degree burglary and false imprisonment of an elder.
DePape, dressed in prison orange and with his brown hair in a ponytail, spoke at length about Sept. 11 being an inside job, his ex-wife being replaced by a body double and his government-provided attorneys conspiring against him during the hearing.
‘I’m a psychic. The more I meditate, the more psychic I get,’ DePape told the court, reading from sheets of paper.
David DePape, 44, was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison without the possibility of parole following a separate state trial
The convictions on the additional charges in the state trial came weeks after a federal judge sentenced DePape to 30 years in federal prison.
In a letter read in court by the victim’s daughter, Christine Pelosi, Paul Pelosi called for the maximum sentence, saying the ‘last peaceful sleep’ he had ended abruptly ‘when the defendant violently broke into my home, burst into my bedroom and stood over my bed with a hammer and zip ties demanding to see my wife, yelling “Where´s Nancy?”‘
He said the attack left him with bumps on his head, a metal plate in it, dizziness and nerve damage in his left hand.
Before issuing the sentence, Judge Harry Dorfman dismissed arguments from DePape’s attorneys that he be granted a new trial for the 2022 attack against Paul Pelosi, who was 82 years old at the time.
‘It’s my intention that Mr. DePape will never get out of prison, he can never be paroled,’ Dorfman said.
One of the defense attorneys, Adam Lipson, asked Dorfman before the sentence was handed down 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 up until his activation,’ Lipson said.
The Oct. 28, 2022, attack on Paul Pelosi was captured on police body camera video just days before the midterm elections.
DePape admitted he planned to hold Nancy Pelosi hostage and ‘break her kneecaps’, but made her husband ‘take the punishment’ when it emerged she was not at home.
He told the court: ‘I wanted to ask her a question about Russiagate and film it and post it online.
‘I was planning to wear the unicorn costume and record it with the body camera I got. I kind of expected her to go along with me and tell me what I wanted to hear.’
Court records of DePape’s purchases from Amazon in the months before the attacks revealed a list of items he reportedly took with him to the crime scene.
They included a camping backpack, computer cables, body cameras, crayons and, bizarrely, two Spooktacular unicorn costumes.
DePape added that after he hit Pelosi he felt ‘really bad’ for him.
He told the court: ‘When he was on the ground, bleeding, I was really scared for his life. I felt really bad for him because we had a really good rapport until like the last second.
‘I reacted because my plan was basically ruined. He was never the target and I’m sorry he got hurt.’
Prosecutors played the body camera footage of the attack and DePape watched without flinching.
The graphic footage of the hammer attack showed an officer shining a flashlight, confronting DePape with Pelosi in the doorway.
As the two struggle, DePape raises his hammer and smashes Pelosi over the head, striking him three times to the ground.
Another video showed blood gushing from Pelosi’s head, with his hands soaked red, as paramedics tended to him.
