Americans were shocked last week to learn that the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was brutally beaten by a man wielding a hammer.
More details have since emerged regarding 42-year-old David DePape, the man who is accused of attacking Mr. Pelosi. Among them is that he is an illegal immigrant who overstayed his visa.
According to the New York Post, DePape came to the United States from Canada in 2001 and was granted a Social Security number while he was living in Hawaii.
Reports surface
The Post also reported that DePape appeared in San Francisco Superior on Tuesday where he pleaded not guilty to 10 state charges brought by the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office.
The paper noted that these included “attempted homicide, first-degree burglary, violent felony enhancement, assault with a deadly weapon, aggravated battery with serious bodily injury, elder abuse, inflict great bodily injury on elderly, dissuading a victim, threatening public official or family member, and damaging or preventing a communication for an emergency call.”
What’s more, DePape is also facing federal charges which carry a potential sentence of up to five decades behind bars. He is currently being held without bail.
Background
The Post noted that Adam Lipson serves as DePape’s attorney, and he spoke to the media following his client’s arraignment.
Lipson stressed that there has “been a lot of speculation regarding Mr. DePape’s vulnerability to misinformation and that’s certainly something we are going to look into as his defense team.”
Many in the mainstream media have attempted to link DePape’s alleged actions with Republican criticism of Pelosi, something Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel rejected during an interview last Sunday with Fox News.
“You can’t say people saying, ‘Let’s fire Pelosi’ or ‘Let’s take back the House’ is saying, ‘Go do violence.’ It’s just unfair and I think we all need to recognize violence is up across the board,” McDaniel was quoted as saying.
During his Monday night broadcast, Fox News host Tucker Carlson mocked the idea that “lives in a hippie school bus in Berkeley with a BLM banner and a pride flag out front” had been radicalized by the GOP.
“If you guessed, this is obviously a textbook case of homegrown right-wing extremism, well, then, obviously, you’ve been watching a lot of cable news today,” Carlson said.