The man who plotted to assassinate Donald Trump at his Florida golf course has been found guilty on all counts—and promptly tried to stab himself in the neck with a pen inside the courtroom.
Ryan Wesley Routh, 59, a self-styled mercenary with a checkered criminal past, was convicted Tuesday by a federal jury of attempting to assassinate a major presidential candidate, weapons charges, and assault on a federal officer. The deliberations lasted barely two hours before the unanimous guilty verdict came down.
As jurors filed out, Routh snatched a pen from a desk and jabbed it toward his throat, witnesses said. Marshals swarmed, wrestled him to the ground, and dragged him from the room as his daughter screamed, “Dad, I love you, don’t do anything!”
Routh faces life in prison when he’s sentenced on December 18.
From Golf Course Gunman to Courtroom Chaos
Prosecutors argued that Routh spent weeks plotting to kill Trump before positioning himself with a rifle at Trump’s West Palm Beach country club on Sept. 15, 2024. A Secret Service agent testified he spotted Routh in the bushes and fired first, forcing him to drop the gun and flee. Routh was arrested minutes later along a nearby interstate.
In closing arguments, Routh—who chose to represent himself—insisted he “never pulled the trigger” and didn’t intend to harm Trump or anyone else. The jury didn’t buy it.
Attorney General Pam Bondi called the verdict “a clear signal that political violence will be punished to the fullest extent of the law,” calling the attempt on Trump’s life “an attack on our nation.”
A Troubled Past
Court records and witness testimony painted Routh as a volatile figure. In the early days of the Ukraine war, he tried to recruit foreign fighters to take on Russia. In North Carolina, he had prior arrests involving explosives, automatic weapons, and stolen property.
Just weeks before the golf course plot, Trump had already survived another assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, when a gunman’s bullet grazed his ear.
Now, with Tuesday’s guilty verdict, the Trump assassination saga enters its next chapter—with Ryan Routh likely to spend the rest of his life behind bars.
