Ryan Wesley Routh has been sentenced to life in prison for attempting to assassinate President Donald Trump at one of his golf courses in Florida in 2024, after a federal judge rejected his request for leniency.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon handed down the sentence on Tuesday (3 February), four months after a jury convicted the 59-year-old of attempted assassination, assaulting a federal officer and multiple firearms offences.
The attempted assassination charge alone carried a potential life sentence.
The plot was foiled on 15 September, 2024, at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, where Trump was playing at the time.
Prosecutors said a U.S. Secret Service agent spotted Routh hiding in shrubbery near the sixth hole, aiming a semiautomatic rifle towards the course as Trump teed off at the fifth hole. The agent fired at Routh, who fled but was later arrested during a traffic stop near Palm City, Florida.
Investigators said Routh had brought a GoPro camera and a handwritten list of Trump’s scheduled public appearances. Prosecutors described the incident as a narrowly averted assassination attempt.
Routh, originally from North Carolina, claimed throughout his trial that he never intended to pull the trigger and characterised his actions as a form of protest. Representing himself after dismissing his lawyers, he told jurors he was guilty only of “caring too much”.
Prosecutors countered by presenting Routh’s private writings, text messages and internet searches, which they said showed clear intent to kill the then Republican presidential nominee.
“There are many legitimate ways to oppose a presidential candidate,” Assistant U.S. Attorney John Shipley told the court. “Murder is not one of them.”
Following his conviction in September 2024, Routh attempted to stab himself in the neck with a pen in the courtroom before U.S. marshals restrained him.
Ahead of sentencing, he asked the judge for a “just punishment” in hopes of avoiding a life term and later filed a motion requesting placement in a prison located in a state that allows assisted suicide.
The case came just months after another attempt on Trump’s life, when a bullet grazed his ear during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
Routh will spend the remainder of his life in federal prison.
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