Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul Pelosi was attacked with a hammer by a person final week on Friday.

San Francisco:

The man accused of attacking the husband of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with a hammer pleaded not responsible to tried homicide and different fees when he appeared Tuesday in a San Francisco court docket.

David DePape, 42, was ordered to be held in custody after the arraignment within the metropolis the place he’s alleged to have assaulted Paul Pelosi in a pre-dawn assault within the couple’s luxurious house.

DePape, of California, was arrested Friday morning after he allegedly broke into the mansion, aspiring to tie up the highly effective politician and break her kneecaps if she didn’t confess to Democratic Party “lies,” the US Justice Department mentioned in a court docket submitting.

DePape had tape, rope, zip ties and different supplies with him, the Justice Department mentioned, however he discovered solely Pelosi’s 82-year-old husband, whom he attacked, hitting him within the head with a hammer.

DePape wore orange jail garments and spoke solely to reply procedural questions through the transient look, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Judge Diane Northway signed an order banning DePape from being involved with the alleged sufferer or his spouse, or from going inside 150 yards (meters) of their house.

The story of the assault shortly metastasized right into a political litmus take a look at within the extremely divided United States.

Liberals blasted the harmful coarsening of public discourse and the prepared perpetuation of falsehoods by mainstream Republicans, that has seen Nancy Pelosi forged as a determine of hate on the appropriate, and a professional goal for real-life violence.

Swathes of the conservative media ecosystem, in the meantime, set about questioning the narrative across the assault, with lurid and unproven options it was a sexual encounter gone unsuitable.

New Twitter boss Elon Musk was amongst those that helped popularise the idea after tweeting a hyperlink to a speculative opinion piece by an outlet with a historical past of unreliability.

Speaking exterior court docket, DePape’s court-appointed lawyer Adam Lipson mentioned the protection group could be wanting into the swirling untruths that will have influenced his shopper.

“There’s also been a lot of speculation regarding Mr. DePape’s vulnerability to misinformation and that is certainly something that we are going to look into,” he instructed reporters.

The suspect faces fees on each a state and a federal stage.

San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins on Monday mentioned DePape faces fees of tried homicide, residential housebreaking, assault with a lethal weapon, elder abuse, false imprisonment of an elder in addition to threats to a public official and their household.

If convicted on the state fees, he would face 13 years to life in jail, in response to Jenkins.

Federal authorities on Monday charged DePape with making an attempt to kidnap a US official and assaulting her member of the family over her actions in her job.

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