The man convicted of attempting to assassinate President Trump at a golf course in 2024 was sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday.
Prosecutors had asked for life without parole for Ryan Routh, who they say “remains totally unrepentant.”
Prosecutors wrote that “the heinous nature of this assassination attempt — his selfish, violent decision to prevent the American voters from electing President Trump by killing him first — that warrants severe criminal punishment.”
Judge Aileen Cannon of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida also added a seven-year sentence for a firearm offense in relation to the assassination attempt.
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Routh, 59, who represented himself during the trial, was assigned a court-appointed attorney to help him prepare for his sentencing hearing.
Last month, attorney Martin L. Roth argued in a court document that Mr. Routh did not “commit an act of terrorism.” He asked the judge to issue a “term of 20 years, followed by the required 7-year mandatory sentence required for his firearm conviction.”
The defense attorney added that Routh would “be in custody into his 80s and would not pose any threat to cause harm to the public.”
Routh was arrested in September 2024 after a Secret Service agent spotted him hiding in the shrubbery near the fifth hole at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach. He was waiting for Mr. Trump to get into his line of fire, prosecutors said, after spending weeks plotting to kill the presidential candidate.
“Routh remains unrepentant for his crimes, never apologized for the lives he put at risk, and his life demonstrates near-total disregard for law,” prosecutors wrote.
He was convicted of trying to assassinate a major presidential candidate, using a firearm in furtherance of a crime, assaulting a federal officer, possessing a firearm as a felon and using a gun with a defaced serial number.
Routh’s imprisonment was declared in the same Fort Pierce courtroom where he tried to stab himself in the neck with a pen in September after jurors found him guilty on all counts. U.S. marshals quickly escorted him out of the courtroom.
Wednesday’s hearing was the first time Routh had been back in court since then.
He underwent a medical evaluation before the trial, and a private psychiatrist “ultimately acknowledged that Routh had no basis to claim incompetence, insanity, or diminished capacity, but did propose that Routh suffers from two disorders,” narcissistic personality disorder and a bipolar II diagnosis, the government said.
Routh’s attorney asked that he receive mental health treatment in custody after his sentencing.
