The 58-year-old man accused of lying in wait for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump pleaded not guilty to plotting to kill the 78-year-old nominee.
Ryan Wesley Routh entered his plea in a Florida federal court Monday. He faces five criminal counts including attempted assassination and a weapons charge related to the semiautomatic rifle investigators found in the golf course shrubbery where Routh was said to be hiding while waiting for Trump to play through on Sept. 15.
The alleged plot was thwarted by U.S. Secret Service agents who said they spotted the barrel of a gun in the golf course bushes before giving chase to the suspect. Routh was soon after apprehended.
He wore tan prison clothes and glasses to court Monday while assuring a judge he understood the charges against him, according to CNN.
Prosecutors claim Routh would’ve had an opportunity to kill Trump on the sixth hole of Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla., had he not been spotted. The GOP candidate and his party hadn’t yet reached that hole.
FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement last week that his organizaron is continuing its investigation into the alleged plot “and will use the full weight and resources of the FBI to uncover and provide as much information as possible” about the incident.
Secret Service agents fired at the suspect, who reportedly didn’t take any shots at Trump. Prosecutors said the would-be assassin set-up a “sniper’s nest” on the golf course perimeter after spending a month stalking his target.
Prosecutors claim they have handwritten evidence from the defendant indicating Routh intended to assassinate the presidential candidate and would pay $150,000 for someone to “finish the job.”
Routh claimed on social media that he voted for Trump in 2016, but became disillusioned. He was at one point a registered Democrat in North Carolina, according to public records. He was removed from voter rolls following a felony conviction before registering again in Hawaii as an unaffiliated voter, per FactCheck.org.
Trump narrowly escaped a July 13 assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, where 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks wounded the septuagenarian politician and shot three of his supporters, one fatally, before Crooks himself was killed by Secret Service agents.
Both gunmen’s specific motivations for allegedly wanting to shoot Trump remain unclear.
With News Wire Services
