The man accused of attacking the husband of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with a hammer during an altercation at the couple’s San Francisco home is due to make his first court appearance on Tuesday.
David Wayne DePape, 42, has been summoned for a hearing where he will be briefed on the state court’s charges against him: attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, robbery, elder abuse and threatening a public official.
It was unclear if DePape would be in court for the prosecution or if he would appear via video link from prison or from a local hospital where he was taken after he was arrested.
Federal prosecutors separately charged him with assault and attempted kidnapping. He is not yet summoned to a court hearing in the federal case.
The attack stoked fears about politically motivated violence a week before the midterm elections that will decide Congressional control.
Nancy Pelosi, Democratic Speaker of the US House of Representatives, was in Washington at the time of the pre-dawn attack.
Her husband, Paul Pelosi, 82, a real estate and venture capital executive, underwent surgery for skull fractures and injuries to his hands and right arm. He remained hospitalized on Tuesday.
“Paul is making steady progress in what will be a long process of recovery,” Nancy Pelosi, who is also 82, said in a statement Monday.
DePape was arrested by San Francisco police after Paul Pelosi made an emergency 911 call reporting an intruder, according to an FBI statement filed in the federal case.
Officers recovered armbands in the bedroom and hallway near the front door, as well as a roll of duct tape, rope, a second hammer, a pair of gloves and a journal from DePape’s backpack, the affidavit said. The intruder had broken down a glass door in the residence.
Paul Pelosi told police he was sleeping when a stranger armed with a hammer entered his second-floor bedroom and woke him up, demanding to speak to his wife, according to the criminal complaint.
Authorities said officers who arrived at Pelosi’s home saw DePape and Pelosi fighting over a hammer. As officers yelled at the two men to drop the hammer, DePape pulled it out and hit Pelosi in the head before being restrained and taken into custody.
The state’s charges are punishable by a prison term of 13 years to life imprisonment. The federal charges carry a combined maximum sentence of 50 years, the Justice Department said in a statement announcing the charges.
(Additional writing and reporting by Dan Whitcomb; editing by Tom Hogue)
Source: CNN Brasil
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