San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images
A man sentenced to 30 years in federal prison in the attack against former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband was convicted Friday by a San Francisco jury of aggravated kidnapping, a conviction that mandates life behind bars without the possibility of parole.
A San Francisco jury found David DePape also guilty of first-degree burglary, false imprisonment of an elder, threatening a family member of a public official and dissuading a witness.
The convictions on the additional charges come weeks after a federal judge sentenced DePape for the 2022 attack against Paul Pelosi.
AP
“Speaker Pelosi and her family remain in awe of their Pop’s bravery, which shone through again on the witness stand in this trial just as it did when he saved his own life on the night of the attack,” Pelosi’s office wrote in an emailed statement Friday.
“For nearly 20 grueling months, Mr. Pelosi has demonstrated extraordinary courage and fortitude every day of his recovery.”
DePape’s public defender Adam Lipson said he was disappointed with the verdict and plans to appeal it.
He called the prosecutors’ decision to file a kidnapping for ransom charge “vindictive.”
“It’s really unfortunate that it was charged this way. It was sort of a textbook vindictive prosecution,” Lipson said.
“As soon as they found that the attempted murder charge was going to be dismissed, they added this charge.”
Lipson earlier argued that the state trial represents double jeopardy following the federal conviction.
Even though the criminal counts are not the same, the two cases stem from the same act, he told the judge.
San Francisco Superior Court Judge Harry Dorfman agreed and dismissed the state charges of attempted murder, elder abuse and assault with a deadly weapon. Another judge upheld the decision on appeal.
Lipson said that the verdict means that after DePape serves 30 years in federal prison, he will be transferred to California “to spend the rest of his life in a California prison.”
Previously, a federal jury convicted DePape of assaulting a federal official’s family member and attempting to kidnap a federal official.
On May 28, he was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison during an unusual resentencing hearing that resulted from judicial error.
Lipson focused his closing arguments on explaining to the jury that prosecutors did not prove DePape kidnapped Paul Pelosi, who was 82 at the time, with the intent “to exact from another person money or something valuable,” which is integral to the charge.