Gunman who killed 1, injured 3 at San Diego-area synagogue gets life in prison
SAN DIEGO — With victims and their families watching in a crowded San Diego courtroom, the gunman who opened fire at a Poway synagogue in 2019, killing one worshipper and injuring three others, was sentenced Thursday to life in prison without parole.
It was the expected sentence for John T. Earnest, 22, who in July pleaded guilty in San Diego Superior Court, a deal that spared him a potential death sentence. Aside from life without parole, he also agreed to an additional 121 years to life sentence, plus 16 years.
Earnest had pleaded guilty to all charges filed against him, including murder, attempted murder and arson for setting fire outside an Escondido mosque a month before the Poway attack. He also admitted that both the shooting and the fire were hate crimes.
Fifty-four people were inside Chabad of Poway for a Sabbath service when Earnest opened fire on April 27, 2019. Congregant Lori Gilbert-kaye, 60, was killed. Founding Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, 8-year-old Noya Dahan and her uncle Almog Peretz, 34, were injured.
A month earlier, at about 3:15 a.m. on March 24, 2019, seven people were inside the Dar-ulArqam mosque when Earnest tried to set it on fire.
No one was hurt, but the façade was damaged. Authorities said the arsonist used accelerant and left graffiti referencing deadly shootings carried out by a white supremacist at New Zealand mosques days earlier.
At the time of the attack, Earnest was a 19-year-old Rancho Peñasquitos resident and nursing student at Cal State San Marcos.
Thursday’s sentence was the maximum punishment he could get in the case filed in state court. The district attorney’s office had announced plans to pursue the death penalty, but federal prosecutors had brought a parallel case against Earnest, and a proposed plea deal loomed.
The district attorney’s office had to move fast. A guilty plea in federal court would have ended their case; California law prohibits further prosecution of a case that has already been prosecuted for the same conduct in another court. They struck a deal, and Earnest pleaded guilty to the state charges in July.
Two months later, Earnest pleaded guilty in the federal case, admitting to all 113 charges and avoiding capital punishment. His sentencing in U.S. District Court in San Diego is set for Dec. 28.
The Escondido mosque fire was set under the cover of darkness, early on a Sunday morning. Someone inside the building spotted the flames and a group of worshippers who had been sleeping inside doused the fire.
About a month later, on the last day of Passover on a sunny Saturday, a gunman in sunglasses and a military-style tactical vest entered the Poway synagogue. His Ar-15-style gun already raised, he opened fire.
Gilbert-kaye was in the lobby when she was fatally shot. As bullets flew, people ducked for cover or rushed out of the synagogue, a few scooping up children as they fled.
One of the worshippers was an off-duty Border Patrol agent who fired back at the gunman. After shooting 10 bullets and struggling with his gun, Earnest left.
He drove to a nearby shopping center and called 911. “I opened fire in a synagogue,” he told the dispatcher. “I think I killed some people.”
He stayed and waited for police to arrest him.