A man who plotted to assassinate United States President Donald Trump at his Florida golf course in September 2024 has been sentenced to life imprisonment.
Ryan Routh, 59, was sentenced on Wednesday after being convicted in September of attempting to kill then-presidential candidate Trump, in what was the second assassination attempt on the billionaire Republican in the lead-up to the election that returned him to the White House.
According to an AFP journalist present in court, Judge Aileen Cannon handed down a sentence of life imprisonment plus seven years following a 90-minute hearing, stating that the punishment was necessary “to protect the public from future crime.”
Addressing the convict directly, the judge said, “The evil is in you. Not in everybody else.”
Routh was arrested on September 15, 2024, after a US Secret Service agent spotted the barrel of a rifle protruding from bushes along the perimeter of Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida, where the former president was playing at the time.
The agent immediately opened fire, prompting Routh to flee the scene in a vehicle. He was later apprehended by law enforcement officials.
The sentencing marked the conclusion of a highly unusual trial in which Routh chose to represent himself despite having no formal legal training. Court proceedings were frequently disrupted by what prosecutors described as erratic and irrational behaviour.
Among his rejected requests while in detention were demands for strippers and the installation of a golf putting green. He also asked that jurors be selected based on their views on the war in Gaza and Trump’s past proposal to purchase Greenland.
Routh’s planned attack came just two months after another assassination attempt on Trump. On July 13, 2024, during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, a 20-year-old gunman, Matthew Crooks, opened fire, with one bullet grazing Trump’s right ear. One rally attendee was killed before Crooks was fatally shot by security personnel. His motive remains unknown.
The Pennsylvania attack was widely seen as a defining moment in Trump’s campaign and a major turning point in his eventual electoral victory.
