Ryan Routh was sentenced to life in prison for attempting to assassinate President Donald Trump at a Florida golf course in September 2024, capping one of the most shocking criminal cases of the election year.
Routh, 59, was convicted last year of trying to kill Trump, who was then a presidential candidate, at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach. Prosecutors said the plot was interrupted only because a U.S. Secret Service agent spotted a rifle barrel protruding from bushes near the course and opened fire. Routh fled but was arrested nearby.
In a sentencing memorandum, Judge Aileen Cannon said Routh’s conduct “undeniably warrant[s] a life sentence.”
“He took steps over the course of months to assassinate a major Presidential candidate, demonstrated the will to kill anybody in the way, and has since expressed neither regret nor remorse to his victims,” Cannon wrote.
Routh pleaded not guilty and chose to represent himself at trial, which began Sept. 8. A North Carolina native who had been living in Hawaii, Routh repeatedly behaved erratically in court, at one point challenging Trump to a game of golf and making rambling references to Adolf Hitler and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
After the jury returned a guilty verdict, Routh attempted to stab himself in the neck with a pen before U.S. marshals rushed him out of the courtroom.
BREAKING: Trump assassination attempt suspect Ryan Routh sentenced to life, plus 7 years – FOX https://t.co/IzCZaYNfRR pic.twitter.com/KCjrw9GIQP
— Rapid Report (@RapidReport2025) February 4, 2026
Federal agents testified that although Routh never had a clear line of sight to Donald Trump, investigators recovered a semiautomatic rifle equipped with a scope and an extended magazine from the location where he had been hiding. Jurors were also shown evidence that Routh carried a list of places Trump was expected to appear and left behind a note to a friend describing the plot as “an assassination attempt.”
In his closing statement, Routh bizarrely spoke in the third person and veered into unrelated topics including American history, the Russia-Ukraine war and his plans to buy a boat, prompting Judge Cannon to repeatedly interrupt him and excuse the jury.
Lead prosecutor John Shipley said the government presented a “mountain of evidence” showing “how close he got to actually pulling this off.”
The Florida incident marked the second attempt on Trump’s life in 2024. In July, a gunman opened fire at a Trump campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, killing one person and wounding several others, including Trump. The shooter, later identified as 20-year-old Thomas Crooks, was killed at the scene by law enforcement.
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