Body-worn camera footage appears to show David DePape and Paul Pelosi seconds before DePape attacks Pelosi with a hammer (via Law&Crime Network).
A federal judge in California has agreed to reopen sentencing for David DePape, the man who only last week was sentenced to 30 years for the assault and attempted kidnapping of former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul Pelosi, because he did not receive a chance to address the court during the hearing.
DePape’s newly scheduled sentencing hearing will be held on May 28, U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Corley ordered Saturday.
Prosecutors first brought the matter to the court’s attention in a Friday motion, noting that the 44-year-old had not been given opportunity to speak before Corley, as is his right. Though it is his right, he is not obligated to do so. Nonetheless, federal rules of criminal procedure demand all defendants be presented the option.
According to a motion from prosecutors filed prior to Corley’s order, U.S. attorneys said they notified DePape’s lawyer of their intent to file the motion to reopen the sentencing hearing.
“Instead of responding first to the government, at 2:19 p.m. today, the defense filed a notice of appeal ‘from the judgment and sentence in this matter,” prosecutors wrote.
Roughly a half hour later, DePape’s attorney wrote back to prosecutors telling them it opposed their motion. This maneuvering by DePape should be ignored, U.S. attorneys told Corley.
In Corley’s order, the judge conceded it was the court that made “clear error” by mistakenly foreclosing on DePape’s time to speak.
At the May 17 sentencing hearing “no party brought to the Court’s attention” that DePape had not been asked if he wished to talk before the sentence was rendered.
“Nonetheless, it was the Court’s responsibility to personally ask Mr. DePape if he wanted to speak. As the Court did not do so, it committed clear error,” Corley wrote.
The court has 14 days to make corrections to errors like these, she added.
“Assuming the defendant represents on appeal he would have spoken if personally asked, this error will almost certainly result in remand for sentencing. So rather than wait for that remand, the Court will reopen sentencing to permit Mr. DePape to speak should he wish. The Court will withhold entry of the Judgment and Commitment in the interim,” the order states.
FILE – David DePape is shown in Berkeley, Calif., on Friday, Dec. 13, 2013. (Michael Short/San Francisco Chronicle via AP, File)
As Law&Crime previously reported, a federal jury found DePape guilty of two charges including attempting to kidnap a federal official and assaulting an immediate family member of a federal official with intent to retaliate against the official for performance of their duties. Prosecutors had initially requested 40 years; his defense attorneys asked for 14.
DePape was sentenced to 30 years for assaulting Paul Pelosi and 20 years for attempting to kidnap him; the sentences were set to run concurrently.
At trial, DePape admitted that he intended to break Nancy Pelosi’s kneecaps and hold her hostage and he confessed during trial to battering Paul Pelosi with the hammer after police arrived at the house during the Oct. 28, 2022, invasion.
DePape was an adherent to the QAnon conspiracy theory and his defense attorneys relied on his being swept up in that as cause for leniency at sentencing and sympathy from jurors.
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