First David DePape, who attacked Paul Pelosi with a hammer in 2022, received an apology from the judge. Then he was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley had DePape brought back to court because he had not been allowed to speak during his first sentencing hearing on May 17, according to Fox News.
“I’m truly sorry for my mistake,” Corley told DePape.
She had written in a previous filing it was a “clear error” on her part not to allow DePape to speak, which is required by law.
DePape was convicted last year of attempted kidnapping of a federal official and assault on the immediate family member of a federal official after attacking Paul Pelosi, the husband of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
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“I feel horribly for hurting Mr. Pelosi,” DePape said in court.
“I should have gone home when I found out Nancy Pelosi wasn’t there,” he said, referring to the night he broke into the Pelosi home in October 2022.
“Looking back, I can see I was not doing well,” he said.
He said a call he made to a local TV station after being arrested was a “stupid immature call,” according to CBS.
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DePape was then sentenced to 30 years in prison, the same sentence he had previously received.
U.S. Attorney Ismail Ramsey previously said the sentence “reflects David DaPape’s lack of remorse and contrition for violently assaulting Mr. Pelosi,” according to Fox News.
BREAKING: David DePape has been sentenced (again) to 30 years for the assault of Paul Pelosi/attempted kidnapping of Nancy Pelosi. A judge re-opened sentencing after failing to ask for a statement weeks ago. This time he apologized: “I should have left when Nancy wasn’t there.”
— Steve Patterson (@PattersonNBC) May 28, 2024
In court, the judge apologized for the mistake and doubled down on her reasons for imposing the sentence that she did.
“I want to apologize for you having to be here this morning,” she said, according to the Los Angeles Times. “It’s completely on me.”
She called the incident “unprecedented” and said “copycats” must be deterred.
She said, she wanted to send a message that “you cannot go and break into the speaker of the house’s home and hold her spouse hostage and then assault him. Or any politician for that matter.”
“The message has to be out there that it is absolutely unacceptable to our democracy,” she said.
