Already charged with illegal possession of a weapon due to his criminal record and possession of a weapon with an erased serial number, Ryan Routh, the man suspected of having tried to shoot Donald Trump in Florida, was charged, Tuesday, September 24, with attempted murder of a presidential candidate.
The 58-year-old was arrested on September 15 after being put on the run by Secret Service agents who spotted him with a gun near the golf course where the former US president was playing.
The new indictment was returned Tuesday afternoon by a “grand jury” – a citizen commission with investigative powers – in Miami, Florida, the Justice Department said in a statement. The case was randomly assigned to Judge Aileen Cannon, who in July issued a very favorable decision to the Republican former president in another case.
Held in detention
The two initial charges were added to those of attempted murder of a presidential candidate, possession of a firearm in order to commit a violent crime and assault on a federal agent. The latter charge refers to the Secret Service agent accused of obstructing the former president’s mission to protect him during his golf game. A federal judge ruled on Monday to keep Ryan Routh in custody.
According to the FBI’s analysis of his phone tracking, U.S. federal police showed he had been in Florida since August 18 and his devices were located on multiple occasions between that date and September 15 near Donald Trump and his family’s Mar-a-Lago golf course. Before being discovered and put on the run, he had also spent nearly 12 hours near Donald Trump’s golf club, prosecutors said last week.
The latter announced, during a hearing on Monday, that it was going to request this accusation “attempted murder”punishable by life in prison. Prosecutors said they received a box left at the person’s home several months ago by an acquaintance of Ryan Routh. This box contained, in particular, a handwritten letter addressed to the ” world “ in which we can read: “This was an assassination attempt against Donald Trump but I regret having failed in my task”.
“Now it is up to you to finish the job and I will offer $150,000 to whoever completes it.”the suspect added in the document, apparently blaming Trump for causing chaos in the Middle East by scuttling the international agreement with Iran over its nuclear program in 2018. Prosecutors did not say whether the attempt discussed in the letter was the one that failed on Sept. 15 or referred to an earlier plan.
Second assassination attempt
In a self-published book in February 2023 about the war in Ukraine, Ryan Routh also mentioned a project “Assassinate Trump”They added. The box also contained ammunition, a metal pipe and four telephones, according to the same source.
“The charges against this crazy killer come down to a simple slap on the wrist”Donald Trump denounced in a press release, accusing the Department of Justice and the federal police of “minimize” and of “treat badly” the matter. The November presidential candidate is demanding that the case be investigated by the authorities in Florida, a state governed by Republican Ron DeSantis, and not by the federal authorities, whom he accuses of being used by his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.
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The former Republican president had already narrowly escaped an assassination attempt on July 13, when a gunman opened fire during a rally in Pennsylvania, hitting him in the ear and killing a member of the audience.
