Life Sentence for Man Who Attempted to Assassinate Trump in Florida in 2024

SadaNews - Ryan Roth has been sentenced to life in prison for attempting to assassinate Donald Trump at his golf course in Florida in September 2024, two months before the presidential elections.

 

A jury in Florida convicted Roth, 59, in September on five charges, including attempting to assassinate a presidential candidate, and he received the maximum sentence as requested by the prosecution.

Judge Aileen Cannon stated, "The appropriate sentence in this case is life imprisonment," adding that she seeks to protect the community from "any future crime" that Roth might commit.

Reports indicated that Roth attempted to stab himself with a pen immediately after the sentence was announced, but guards intervened to stop him.

Roth had claimed his innocence of the charges and defended himself during the trial, insisting that he had no intention of harming Trump or anyone else. Judge Cannon had allowed him to represent himself, despite his legal ineligibility.

Roth was arrested on September 15, 2024, by agents of the U.S. Secret Service, assigned to protect high-profile political figures in the United States, after they spotted him armed near the golf course where Trump was playing.

This was the second assassination attempt on the Republican candidate, who later won the 2024 presidential election, as Trump had narrowly survived another assassination attempt on July 13, 2024, during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

The perpetrator at that time, Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, was able to fire several rounds before being shot dead by Secret Service agents.

At that time, images of Trump with blood streaming down his face, hand raised, spread across the globe, and the event was considered a pivotal moment in the election campaign.