This courtroom sketch shows Ryan Routh, left, throwing his arms up directed at US District Judge Aileen Cannon in frustration as jury selection begins in the trial of Routh, who is charged with attempting to assassinate Donald Trump last year at a golf course in South Florida, September 8, 2025, in Fort Pierce, Florida. LOTHAR SPEER / AP
A man who plotted to assassinate President Donald Trump at his Florida golf course in September 2024, two months before the US election, was sentenced on Wednesday, February 4, to life in prison.
Ryan Routh, 59, was convicted in September of trying to kill then-candidate Trump, the second attempt on the billionaire's life in the run-up to the vote that brought him back to the White House.
According to an Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalist in the courtroom, Judge Aileen Cannon handed down the sentence of life plus seven years after a 90-minute hearing, saying it was "to protect the public from future crime" by Routh. "The evil is in you. Not in everybody else," she told him.
US Attorney General Pam Bondi hailed the sentencing, calling Routh's attemped assassination "a direct assault against our entire democratic system."
