WEST PALM BEACH, Florida: The person accused of hiding out with a gun close to Donald Trump’s Florida golf course in an apparent bid to kill the former president wrote a letter months earlier describing an “assassination try” and providing a bounty on Trump’s life, US prosecutors mentioned on Monday (Sep 23).
Ryan Routh, 58, has been charged with two gun crimes after he allegedly pointed a rifle by means of the tree line on Sep 15 whereas the Republican presidential candidate was taking part in golf at his course in West Palm Seashore, in keeping with a legal criticism. He has not but entered a plea.
Routh is because of seem at a listening to scheduled to start at 11am EDT on Monday during which prosecutors the place will ask a decide to maintain him in jail till his trial. In a court docket submitting launched earlier than the listening to, prosecutors mentioned that a number of months previous to the incident, Routh dropped off a handwritten letter addressed to “the world” that provided a bounty on Trump.
“This was an assassination try on Donald Trump however I failed you,” the suspect wrote, in keeping with the submitting. “I’ll supply $150,000 to whomever can full the job.”
The letter was present in a field handed over by an unidentified civilian witness that additionally included ammunition, a metallic pipe and 4 telephones, prosecutors mentioned.
Prosecutors additionally mentioned that when Routh was arrested this month his automotive contained a handwritten checklist of dates in August, September and October of locations the place Trump had appeared or was anticipated to seem. They mentioned a search of his cellphone data confirmed that the units had pinged towers close to the Trump Worldwide golf course the place the incident came about and by the Mar-a-Lago resort the place Trump lives.
Routh has been charged with possession of a firearm as a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial quantity. Extra prices might observe.
A US Secret Service agent noticed the weapon and fired in Routh’s course, inflicting the suspect to flee, in keeping with the criticism. Routh was later arrested alongside a Florida freeway. US officers have mentioned Routh didn’t hearth a shot throughout the encounter on the golf course and didn’t have a line of sight to Trump, who was just a few hundred metres away.
