A man has been charged with attempting to kidnap US house speaker Nancy Pelosi and assaulting her husband.
Intruder David DePape (42), who allegedly beat Paul Pelosi (82) with a hammer at the couple’s San Francisco home last week, was also charged in California with attempted murder on top of federal crimes.
The state charges against Mr DePape — including residential burglary, false imprisonment of an elder and threatening a public official’s family member — were unveiled on Monday hours after the US Justice Department accused him of attempted kidnapping and assault.
Mr DePape faces decades in prison in both cases if convicted.
Mr Pelosi is recovering after surgery to repair a fractured skull and serious injuries to his right arm and hands while struggling against an intruder at the Pelosi home early on the morning of October 28th.
Mr DePape told police he wanted to hold the Democratic leader hostage and “break her kneecaps” to show other members of Congress there were “consequences to actions”, authorities said on Monday.
In a federal complaint, officials say that Mr DePape, carrying zip ties and tape in a backpack, broke into the couple’s San Francisco home early on Friday morning, went upstairs where Mr Pelosi was sleeping and demanded to talk to “Nancy”.
When Mr Pelosi told the intruder she was not there, Mr DePape said he would wait — even after being told she would not be home for some days, it said.
Mr DePape told police of his plans to hold Ms Pelosi hostage to “talk to her” and viewed her “as the “leader of the pack” of lies told by the Democratic Party, the eight-page complaint says.
“If she were to tell DePape the ‘truth’, he would let her go and if she ‘lied’, he was going to break “her kneecaps”, the complaint alleges.
“By breaking Nancy’s kneecaps, she would then have to be wheeled into Congress, which would show other members of Congress there were consequences to actions,” it says. — Agencies