PELOSI ATTACK SUSPECT CALLS TV STATION
A man who said he was the suspect in last year’s hammer attack on Paul Pelosi expressed regret in a phone call from jail to a California TV station — not that he almost killed his victim, but that he didn’t hurt more people.
David DePape, 42, is jailed on state and federal charges related to the Oct. 28 attack of Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s husband at their San Francisco home. Authorities have called it a political attack spurred by far-right conspiracy theories.
On Friday, Bay Area Fox affiliate KTVU received a call from the San Francisco jail, according to reporter Amber Lee. She said it was DePape.
“What I did was really bad,” the man says in the audio. “I’m so sorry I didn’t get more of them . ... I should’ve come better prepared.”
DePape spoke about his perceived enemies uninterrupted as if he were reading a script, Lee said during an interview with her station.
At the start of the nearly six-minute call, Lee said, she was told that she could record it but that she was not allowed to challenge DePape’s statements or ask follow-up questions because he didn’t want the call to affect his legal case.
The phone call came hours after authorities released evidence including the police body-camera footage from the night of the attack at the Pelosis’ home in the posh Pacific Heights neighborhood. DePape told Lee that he saw the video.
In the footage, Paul Pelosi, 82, and the intruder can be seen struggling for control of a hammer. The attacker wrests the weapon from Paul Pelosi and strikes him in the head, before officers tackle him to the ground.
Paul Pelosi suffered a skull fracture and serious injuries to his right arm and his hands. He spent six days at a hospital and was expected to make a full recovery.
The attack on Paul Pelosi, which took place a few days before the midterm election that would lead to Democrats losing control of the House, is widely considered an act of political violence. The attacker has said he had intended to kidnap Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, who at the time was speaker of the House but has since stepped aside from party leadership.
In a public statement Friday, DePape’s public defender Adam Lipson said releasing the body-camera footage is disrespectful to Paul Pelosi and could spark unfounded theories about the case, jeopardizing DePape’s ability to get a fair trial.
Lipson did not immediately respond to The Washington Post’s request for comment Sunday morning.
Lee had tried to contact DePape after his arrest, but the phone call Friday was unexpected, she said on KTVU. Lee and KTVU did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment Sunday morning.