Ryan Wesley Routh was indicted by a federal grand jury in Miami late on Sept. 24 on five charges related to the Sept. 15 attempt to assassinate former President Donald J. Trump at a Florida golf club.
The indictment includes charges of attempted assassination of a presidential candidate, possession of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence, assault on a federal officer, possession of a firearm and ammunition by a felon, and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.
Routh, 58, of Greensboro, North Carolina, and Kaaawa, Hawaii, faces life in prison if convicted of the attempted assassination charge. The other charges each carry a sentence of five to 20 years in prison.
At a federal court hearing in West Palm Beach on Sept. 23, a magistrate judge ordered Routh held in custody pending trial on two firearms-related charges.
The criminal case based on the indictment has been randomly assigned to U.S. District Judge Eileen M. Cannon, who recently dismissed the Department of Justice's classified documents lawsuit against President Trump.
“In our country, we must hold accountable those who turn to violence.”
The indictment identifies the federal agent who was assaulted during the incident as “Secret Service Special Agent No. 1.” Routh allegedly pointed an AK-47 rifle at the agent from outside a fence near the sixth green at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida. Trump was playing the fifth hole at the time.
“Violence targeted at public servants endangers everything our country stands for, and the Department of Justice will take every step to hold Ryan Routh accountable for his role in the attempted assassination of former President Trump as charged in the indictment,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.
“Routh has been charged with attempting to assassinate a presidential candidate, an offense that undermines the very foundations of our democratic system,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement.
“The FBI continues to investigate this alleged conspiracy, and we will use the full force and resources of the FBI to uncover and provide as much information as possible about what led to the incident in West Palm Beach,” Wray said. “In our country, we must hold accountable those who resort to violence.”
Routh was charged with two firearms violations in a previous federal criminal indictment, and those charges were also included in the indictment.
According to the indictment, federal prosecutors have advised that if convicted, Routh will forfeit all assets related to the assassination attempt, including “all real or personal property constituting or derived from the proceeds related to such crime.”
The Justice Department said in a press release that around 1:30 p.m. on September 15, Secret Service agents patrolling the perimeter of the golf course “saw the partially concealed face of a man, later identified as Routh, in the brush along the fence near the sixth hole. The agent saw a rifle pointed at Routh through the chain-link fence and fired at him.
Routh reportedly fled the scene in a black Nissan Xterra. A witness saw Routh running across the road and took a photo of the vehicle and license plate. Routh was stopped approximately 45 minutes later on Interstate 95 by deputies from the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office and Martin County Sheriff's Office.
When agents searched along the fence at Trump International, they found a sniper's nest with an AK-47 rifle equipped with a scope and an extended magazine. A backpack and a reusable shopping bag hanging from the fence each contained “a small arms interceptor plate,” the Justice Department said in a news release.
In a September 23 court filing, prosecutors released an undated, handwritten letter that predicted the attempt to assassinate the former president would fail and offered a $150,000 reward to “anyone who could complete the mission.” The letter was in a box that Routh delivered “several months ago” to the home of a person he would only call a “civilian witness,” according to prosecutors.
According to prosecutors, Routh traveled from Greensboro to West Palm Beach on Aug. 14. On “multiple days and times” between Aug. 18 and Sept. 15, Routh's cellphone accessed cell towers near Trump International Golf Club and Mar-a-Lago, Trump's residence. Routh is believed to have arrived at a location along the fence that he used as a sniper base about 12 hours before he was shot by Secret Service agents.
FBI agents searched the Nissan Xterra and found six cell phones, 12 pairs of gloves, Routh's Hawaii driver's license, a U.S. passport and a handwritten list of dates and locations where Trump had appeared or was scheduled to appear in August, September and October. One of the phones contained Google searches for directions from Palm Beach County to Mexico, the FBI said.
Routh, who has spent much of the past two years as a mercenary recruiting soldiers for the Ukrainian army in its war with Russia, has an extensive criminal record in North Carolina dating back to the mid-1980s. He was convicted in 2002 of possessing an explosive device that court documents called a “weapon of mass destruction.” His prison sentence in that case was suspended and he was placed on probation.
Routh's son, Orlan Alexander Routh, 35, was indicted in a federal criminal complaint on Sept. 23 on one count of possession of child pornography and one count of receipt of child pornography. The FBI said it found pornographic images on Routh's cellphone during a search of his Greensboro home as part of an investigation into the attempted assassination of his father.
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