A man serving a 30-year federal prison sentence for attacking former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband was convicted Friday by a San Francisco jury of aggravated kidnapping, a conviction that carries a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole.
A San Francisco jury also found David DePape guilty of first-degree theft, false imprisonment of an elderly person, intimidation of a family member of a public servant and tampering with a witness.
The guilty verdict on the additional charges came weeks after a federal judge convicted DePape of assaulting House Speaker Paul Pelosi in 2022.
“Speaker Pelosi and our family remain in awe of my father’s bravery, which shone through on the testimony stand at this trial just as it did when he saved his own life on the night of the attack,” Pelosi’s office said in an emailed statement Friday.
“Ms Pelosi has demonstrated extraordinary courage and fortitude every day during this nearly 20-month, grueling recovery.”
DePape’s public defender, Adam Lipson, said he was disappointed with the verdict and planned to appeal.
He called the prosecutor’s decision to bring kidnapping-for-ransom charges “vindictive.”
“It’s really unfortunate that this has been prosecuted in the way that it has. It’s a classic retaliatory prosecution,” Lipson said.
“As soon as they found out the attempted murder charge was going to be dismissed, they added this charge.”
Lipson previously argued that a state trial following a federal conviction would pose double jeopardy.
Although the charges are not the same, the two incidents stem from the same conduct, he told the judge.
San Francisco Superior Court Judge Harry Dorfman agreed, dismissing state charges of attempted murder, elder abuse and assault with a deadly weapon. Another judge upheld the decision on appeal.
Lipson said the sentence means DePape will serve 30 years in federal prison and then be transferred to California “to spend the rest of his life in a California prison.”
A federal jury previously convicted DePape of assaulting a family member of a federal officer and attempting to kidnap a federal officer.
On May 28, following an unusual resentencing hearing due to a miscarriage of justice, he was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison.
Lipson focused his closing argument on telling jurors that the prosecution had not proven that the purpose of kidnapping Paul Pelosi, who was 82 at the time, was to “rob another person of money or valuables” – a purpose that is at the heart of the indictment.
Assistant District Attorney Phoebe Maffei told jurors in her closing argument that DePape had planned to videotape his questioning of Nancy Pelosi.
Lipson argued that the video did not exist and would have been of no value even if it did exist.
“His objective in breaking into Ms. Pelosi’s home was to confront and potentially injure and assault Nancy Pelosi. That was his objective at the time and it had nothing to do with Ms. Pelosi,” he said.
In his rebuttal, Maffei noted that DePape told detectives, and also testified in federal court, that he intended to obtain and post on the Internet a video of Nancy Pelosi confessing to what he believed to be crimes.
“There is inherent value in a video of the Speaker of the House confessing to a crime in his own home,” Maffei said.
The attack on Paul Pelosi was captured on police body camera footage and sent shockwaves through the political world just days before the 2022 midterm elections.
He suffered two head wounds, including a fractured skull, which he was treated with plates and screws but will have permanent scars, as well as injuries to his right arm and hand.
During testimony in his federal trial, DePape admitted to holding Nancy Pelosi hostage, recording his interrogations of her and planning to “break her kneecaps” if she did not admit to lies she told about “Russiagate,” the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
In his closing argument, Lipson told the jury that before the attack, DePape had lived an isolated and lonely life and had become “ensnared by propaganda and conspiracy theories.”
This week, a judge kicked DePape’s former partner out of the gallery and the second floor of the San Francisco courthouse after he determined DePape was trying to manipulate the jury pool.
On Monday and Tuesday, Gypsy Taub, a prominent Bay Area activist, handed out papers outside the courtroom with the address of a website she runs that spreads conspiracy theories.
Cards were also found in a women’s bathroom near the courtroom, with a website address scrawled in marker on the wall.
At the federal sentencing, DePape’s federal public defender said Taub was DePape’s first exposure to extremist beliefs, and that Taub has two sons with DePape.
In a letter asking a federal judge for leniency, DePape’s twin sister, Joan Robinson, said Taub was 20 years old when she met DePape in Hawaii and DePape was in her 30s and pregnant.
Robinson wrote that Taub isolated DePape from her family, causing “extreme emotional damage” to her brother.
