Man gets 20 years for bomb mailings

NEW YORK >> Cesar A. Sayoc Jr., the fervent supporter of President Donald Trump who rattled the nation last fall when he sent homemade pipe bombs to former President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and other prominent Democrats, was sentenced Monday to 20 years in prison.

Sayoc pleaded guilty in March to mailing 16 bombs to people he considered to be Trump’s enemies. The FBI said the devices were packed with powder from fireworks, fertilizer, a pool chemical and glass fragments that would function as shrapnel, but they would not have worked as designed.

In the end, the flaws in the bombs’ design were critical to a federal judge’s decision to give Sayoc 20 years in prison rather than the life sentence prosecutors requested. The judge, Jed S. Rakoff of U.S. District Court in Manhattan, said he had concluded Sayoc was capable of concocting a pipe bomb that could explode and had consciously chosen not to.

The lawyers argued in a recent court filing that Sayoc, 57, suffered from a long-untreated mental illness and drew inspiration from the president for his terror campaign.

Before he was sentenced, Sayoc read a handwritten statement, apologizing. “I wish more than anything I could turn back time and take back what I did,” he said. “But I want you to know, your honor, with all my heart and soul, I feel the pain and suffering of these victims.”

Geoffrey S. Berman, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, said after the sentencing that although “thankfully no one was hurt by his actions, Sayoc’s domestic terrorism challenged our nation’s cherished tradition of peaceful political discourse.”