Pipebomb ‘hoaxer’ who targeted Trump critics given 20 years

A man who mailed pipes filled with explosives to critics of Donald Trump was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Cesar Sayoc’s wife Madeline, centre, leaves federal court with public defenders Amy Gallicchio, left, and Sarah Baumgartel, in New York yesterday. Picture: AP

A Florida man who mailed pipes filled with explosives to prominent Democrats and critics of ­Donald Trump was yesterday sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Cesar Sayoc, 57, who pleaded guilty in March to using weapons of mass destruction and other crimes, began crying when federal district judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan read the sentence.

Prosecutors had asked Judge Rakoff to sentence Sayoc to life in prison, while his lawyers had sought a sentence of 10 years plus one month.

One of Sayoc’s lawyers, Ian Marcus Amelkin, argued his crimes were caused by paranoid, delusional thinking brought on by heavy use of steroids. He said Sayoc, who was living in a van at the time of his ­arrest last year, had struggled all his life with severe learning disabilities, the effects of childhood abuse and social isolation.

Sayoc, Mr Amelkin said, saw Mr Trump as a “father figure” and became obsessed with conspiracy theories about people he perceived as being enemies of the President. “We believe that the President’s rhetoric contributed to Mr Sayoc’s behaviour,” he said.

Cesar Sayoc. Picture: AP

Assistant US attorney Jane Kim, one of the prosecutors, ­argued Sayoc was a danger to the public and that his crimes warranted severe punishment.

“The defendant here set out to terrorise people,” she said.

Sayoc expressed remorse shortly before the sentencing. “I am so very sorry for what I did,” he said.

Sayoc sent packages containing pipes stuffed with explosives, wires and alarm clocks to 16 intended targets, including former president Barack Obama, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, senators Cory Booker and ­Kamala Harris, billionaire investor and Democratic donor ­George Soros, former CIA director John Brennan, actor Robert De Niro and CNN.

All of the devices were intercepted and none exploded.

A report by federal investigators concluded they had no mechanism to trigger an explosion and “would not have functioned as designed”. Prosecutors argued that Sayoc nonetheless meant to injure his targets, while his lawyers said he meant only to inspire fear.

Sayoc himself said in a handwritten letter to Judge Rakoff after his guilty plea that the bombs were a hoax. Judge Rakoff said he believed Sayoc.

“He hated his victims. He wished them no good, but he was not so lost as to wish them dead, at least not by his own hand,” the judge said. Still, the judge said, Sayoc’s crimes were “far too horrible” for a “relatively lenient” 10-year sentence.

Reuters