A British man has pled not guilty to charges that he tried to steal a police officer’s gun to shoot Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee.
20-year-old Michael Sanford, from the town of Dorking in England, was arrested and taken into custody at a Trump rally at the Treasure Island Casino in Las Vegas on 21 June after trying to grab the pistol at the hip of a police officer protecting Trump, according to a report by the secret service.
Sandford stood wearing a yellow jail jumpsuit with his federal public defense attorneys during his brief arraignment. He responded “yes, I do” when US magistrate judge Cam Ferenbach asked whether he understood the nature of the charges against him.
After he was arrested, Sandford told officers that he had intended to kill Trump, and said that he had purchased tickets to another event later that day in Phoenix, Arizona, as backup. He had driven to Las Vegas from San Bernardino, California, that day specifically to shoot the Republican nominee, the report said.
A federal grand jury found in June that there was enough evidence to charge Sandford – whose visa had expired and so was in the country illegally – on three felony charges: two counts of illegal alien in possession of a firearm and one count of impeding and disrupting the orderly conduct of government business and official functions.
The first firearm charge relates to when Sandford grabbed for the officer’s gun at the rally, and the second to when he visited a firing range earlier that day to practice, the Department of Justice said.
His attorneys, Brenda Weksler and Ryan Norwood, declined to comment outside court. If convicted he faces up to 30 years in prison and a maximum fine of $750,000.
Sandford, who was denied bail in June by federal magistrate George Foley on the grounds that he would be a flight risk, will remain in custody until his trial, which is set to begin on 22 August.
Another magistrate judge acknowledged during Sandford’s first court appearance on 20 June that his mental health may be an issue. A federal public defender representing him at that time said Sandford previously attempted suicide and once ran away from a hospital in England, but that he was competent for court proceedings.
“He’s never shown any violent tendencies before, he’s never been a bad person, he’s a nice kid and literally wouldn’t hurt a fly – he used to tell us not to use fly spray because he didn’t want any flies to die,” Sandford’s father, Paul Davey, told the Portsmouth News in June.
He added that someone must have coerced or “radicalized” his son into attacking the presidential candidate, adding: “Whether he’s been blackmailed or put up to it, that’s the only thing me and his mum can think of.”(Nicky Woolf)
Link: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/06/british-man-pleads-not-guilty-donald-trump-assassination-attempt
20
