The man accused of trying to assassinate former President Donald Trump at his golf course in Florida will appear in court on Monday after additional charges were filed against him.
Ryan Wesley Roth is expected to be arraigned in federal court in West Palm Beach on an indictment filed last week charging him with attempted assassination and weapons crimes.
Authorities said the second attempt on Trump’s life was foiled when a member of his security detail discovered the barrel of a gun protruding from the golf course’s fence line, just before where Trump was playing. The agent fired at Roth, who ran away and was arrested in a nearby county.
Officials said Roth did not fire any shots and Trump was not in his sight. He left behind a digital camera, a backpack, a loaded SKS rifle with scopes, and a plastic bag containing food.
Prosecutors said he wrote about his plans to kill Trump in a handwritten note months before his September 15 arrest, in which he referred to his actions as a “botched assassination attempt on Donald Trump” and offered $150,000 to anyone who could “finish.” The job.” That note was in a box that Roth had apparently dropped off at the home of an unidentified witness months before his arrest.
The hearing is scheduled to be held on Monday before the magistrate judge, according to the case list. But further proceedings will be overseen by US District Judge Eileen Cannon, who was appointed to the bench by Trump and also assigned to the criminal case accusing the former president of illegally storing classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago home.
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Cannon has drawn intense scrutiny for her handling of Trump’s criminal case, which she dismissed in July, a decision that special counsel Jack Smith’s team is now appealing.
Roth’s arrest came two months after Trump was shot and wounded in the ear in an assassination attempt during an election rally in Pennsylvania. The Secret Service acknowledged the failures that led to the shooting but said security worked as it should have to thwart a possible attack in Florida.
Roth was initially charged in a criminal complaint only with firearms offenses before prosecutors brought additional charges before a grand jury. Prosecutors often quickly file the first easily provable charges, then add more serious charges later as the investigation progresses.
Other charges he faces include illegal possession of his gun despite multiple felony convictions, including two counts of possession of stolen goods in 2002 in North Carolina. He is also accused of possessing a weapon with a serial number that has been obliterated and is unreadable to the naked eye, in violation of federal law.
& Edition 2024 The Canadian Press
