JOIN USSuspect in Pelosi attack had other targets, say authorities
After an intruder broke into the San Francisco home of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and bludgeoned her husband with a hammer, leaving him unconscious for three minutes as he lay in a pool of blood, the attacker told police that he had other targets: a local professor, and several prominent state and federal politicians.
The new details of the attack, which police officers say was motivated by the assailant’s desire to take Pelosi hostage, interrogate her and break her kneecaps if she “lied,” emerged Tuesday from prosecutors as the suspect appeared in court for the first time.
The suspect, David DePape, 42, pleaded not guilty to several state felony charges after investigators say he broke into the Pelosi residence last week in the well-to-do Pacific Heights neighborhood and demanded to see Pelosi, the country’s third most powerful politician, who was in Washington at the time.
The filing by local prosecutors Tuesday provided chilling details, including how Paul Pelosi, in a terrifying situation, was able to surreptitiously call 911 while he was in the bathroom and the intruder was in the house. It also offered insights into a disturbed man seemingly enthralled by the conspiracy theories that have portrayed Nancy Pelosi as an enemy of the country.
After breaking into the home by slamming his body through a glass door on the back porch, the intruder found Paul Pelosi, 82, asleep in his bedroom just after 2 am, according to the filing. He demanded to see Nancy Pelosi, and when he was told she wouldn’t be back for days, the suspect said he would wait for her.
Paul Pelosi, sitting on his bed, asked why.
“Well, she’s No 2 in line for the presidency, right?” the intruder said, according to police. Soon after, he told Paul Pelosi that “we’ve got to take them all out.”
At another point, when Paul Pelosi asked if he could call anyone for DePape, the suspect “ominously responded that it was the end of the road for Mr Pelosi,” authorities said.
Police said that without any questioning, DePape told them that he was on a suicide mission. Authorities said he believed he had been captured by home security cameras and recorded on the 911 call but remained undeterred.
The “defendant’s intent could not have been clearer: He forced his way into the Pelosi home intending to take the person third in line to the presidency of the United States hostage and to seriously harm her,” prosecutors wrote as they asked the court to detain DePape without bail.
The latest filing came a day after federal prosecutors filed a complaint against DePape that said that he directly targeted Nancy Pelosi and intended to make an example of her to other members of Congress.
“I’m sick of the insane fucking level of lies coming out of Washington, DC,” he told officers at the scene, according to the local filing. “I came to have a little chat with his wife.”
During the 911 call that prompted a dispatcher to send officers, Paul Pelosi left the phone on speaker and, trying to keep the assailant calm, was able to gently imply to the dispatcher that something was amiss.
At one point, to defuse the situation, prosecutors wrote, Paul Pelosi told the dispatcher that he didn’t need police. When the dispatcher told him to call back if he changed his mind, he said, “No, no, no, this gentleman just, uh, came into the house, uh, and he wants to wait for my wife to come home.”
In the days since the attack, those who know DePape have described a shy man who once seemed to live the lifestyle of a Bay Area hippie, making hemp jewelry and attending protests against a ban on public nudity, but who in recent years fell into homelessness, isolation and darkness, spending his time immersed in an online world of conspiracy theories and bigotry.
About six years ago, according to his most recent employer, DePape was down on his luck, living under a tree in a park and hanging around outside a lumber store in Berkeley, California, looking for work.
“You know how people sit outside and wait for someone to come and offer them work?” recalled Frank Ciccarelli, a carpenter who builds houses and makes furniture. “He was sitting there. So I picked him up. So he started working for me. And he really worked out well.”
For the next several years Ciccarelli became close to DePape, even as he worked less and seemed to spend more time online, immersed in right-wing conspiracy theories — right up until a week ago, when he paid DePape his most recent wages.
At his court appearance Tuesday, DePape, with long brown hair, wore a jail uniform of a long-sleeve orange shirt and orange pants, as well as a black face mask. He did not turn around to face the assembled news outlets, but his attorney spoke in his ear several times and he nodded. When the judge asked him if he was prepared to waive his right to a hearing within 10 days, DePape nodded slightly and said, “Yes.”
DePape was assigned a public defender, Adam Lipson, to represent him. In comments after Tuesday’s court appearance, Lipson said DePape was recently moved to the county jail from a hospital, where he was treated for a dislocated shoulder he sustained during the arrest.
Lipson promised to mount a “vigorous defense” and signaled that one possible strategy could be to highlight his client’s “vulnerability” to the misinformation and conspiracy theories that have become so prominent in American political life.
Ciccarelli, 76, described DePape as a quiet person and a diligent worker — an easygoing guy, at least until the topic of politics came up. He said he spent several hours a day with DePape four or five days a week. “I think I know him better than anyone does.”
Over the six years he has known DePape, Ciccarelli said, he witnessed a transformation from a shy and hardworking, but troubled, man into someone who was increasingly isolated and captive to his darkest thoughts.
“If you got him talking about politics, it was all over,” Ciccarelli recalled in an interview this week. “Because he really believed in the whole MAGA, ‘Pizzagate,’ stolen election — you know, all of it, all the way down the line.”
DePape’s sympathies for the most extreme right-wing conspiracy theories are one piece of the growing investigation into his background.
The state charges against DePape came Monday, along with several federal charges, including the attempted murder of Paul Pelosi, who remains in intensive care at a hospital after undergoing surgery Friday, according to a person familiar with the situation. In a statement Monday, Nancy Pelosi said her husband “is making steady progress on what will be a long recovery process.”
DePape grew up in British Columbia in Canada and moved to California about two decades ago to pursue a relationship with a woman he had met in Hawaii. For a time, he house-sat for a woman in the East Bay area who ran an urban farm for low-income residents, and sometimes helped take care of the chickens.
From 2002 to 2009, DePape was registered to vote in San Francisco County and declared himself affiliated with the Green Party, according to county records that showed he voted once, in 2002. He attested to being eligible to vote.
After working together for a few years, Ciccarelli helped DePape get away from the streets, moving him into a friend’s garage studio in Richmond, California.
“Once he was housed, he had much more time to spend on his computer,” Ciccarelli said. “Because when you’re living under a tree, you don’t have a plug.”
On Saturday, the FBI raided the garage in Richmond and seized two hammers, a sword and a pair of gloves.
As he spent more time on his computer in recent months, DePape appeared to have produced a voluminous record of his political leanings — ranting about the 2020 election being stolen, appearing to deny the gassing of Jews at Auschwitz and claiming that schoolteachers were grooming children to be transgender. DePape’s blog was registered at the Richmond address where he resided.
Ciccarelli, who said he was scheduled to work with DePape on Monday, said he never heard DePape make racist comments, but said he had become increasingly isolated the past few years and wanted to work less in the carpentry business.
“He was completely caught up in the fantasy, in the MAGA fantasy,” he said.
Over the past few days, Ciccarelli has struggled to make sense of the news about his friend. “He did a monstrous thing, but he’s not a monster,” he said. “He’s really decent, gentle — it sounds crazy to say gentle — but he was a very gentle soul. But he was going downhill. He went down the rabbit hole.