SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA: A federal trial has been initiated against David DePape more than a year after he broke into former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco home and bludgeoned her husband Paul Pelosi with a hammer on October 28, 2022.
The 43-year-old Canadian citizen is currently facing two federal felonies: assaulting a member of the official's immediate family in retribution for the official's execution of her duties and attempting to abduct a US official.
If convicted, he faces life in prison, according to the Associated Press. However, DePape has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
He is yet to go on trial on state charges — which include attempted murder, assault with a dangerous weapon, and elder abuse — that were brought against him separately by the San Francisco District Attorney's Office.
Defense explains David DepPape’s alleged belief in conspiracy theories
In her opening salvo on Thursday, November 9, Jodi Linker, a defense attorney for DePape, said the evidence against her client was clear but the prosecution’s version of events was not the whole story.
“What matters is what brought David to that house—what David believed and what he intended,” she said, adding, “This is not a whodunit. But what the government fails to acknowledge is the ‘whydunit,’ and the why matters in this case.”
The defense then told the jury that DePape’s attack on 82-year-old Paul “had nothing to do” with the then-Speaker or her duties, according to Daily Beast.
Rather, she contended that the attack was motivated by a larger political conspiracy that the corrupt ruling class -- including people like Hunter Biden, George Soros, and even Tom Hanks, was deliberately hurting children and undermining American democracy.
“He did something wrong, something horrible,” Linker said, according to The Washington Post, adding “but he did not commit these two federal charges.”
DePape, an illegal immigrant to the United States, became engrossed in internet conspiracy theories casting doubt on the result of the 2020 presidential election, and vehemently and abusively denouncing his perceived enemies — the media, foreigners, Democrats, Jews, and Black people — on a blog.
Countering the defense’s claims, prosecutors stated that DePape had been attempting to exact revenge on Pelosi for her work in the House.
“The evidence in this case is going show that when the defendant used this hammer to break into the Pelosi’s home he intended to kidnap Nancy Pelosi,” Assistant US Attorney Laura Vartain Horn told the jury, holding aloft the weapon in a clear plastic bag.
Vartain Horn then outlined DePape's "violent plan," which included giving Pelosi "a lesson," fracturing her kneecaps and holding her hostage.
According to a criminal complaint, DePape told investigators that he "viewed Nancy as the 'leader of the pack' of lies told by the Democratic Party" and that fracturing her knees "would show other Members of Congress there were consequences to actions.”
David DePape’s ex-lover suggests case is a conspiracy
As the trial continues, DePape’s former partner Oxane "Gypsy" Taub has been fixated on the case as her most recent example of a conspiracy.
In an email to local reporters last month, Taub revealed how she is covering DePape’s case in a new TV show called "Paul Pelosi Cover Up” that she is doing on public access.
"The TV series is dedicated to exposing the inconsistency of the official story about what happened at the house of Nancy Pelosi on October 28, 2022," Taub stated, according to SFIST.
She continued by posing multiple questions concerning the bodycam footage and the specifics of the crime. "How could [DePape] possibly trick surveillance cameras of local and federal police that were in charge of monitoring Nancy Pelosi's house?” she said.
“Why didn't Paul Pelosi leave the house when the police arrived?... Why is it that the video doesn't show the action?... How did Paul Pelosi and all his neighbors manage to sleep through the smashing of the window?" she continued.
Taub herself has admitted that DePape suffered from mental illness and had perhaps spiraled after becoming homeless in recent years.
