NEW YORK -- Cesar Sayoc, a fanatical supporter of President Donald Trump who last year mailed explosive devices to prominent Democrats and media figures, was sentenced Monday to 20 years in prison after a judge concluded that Sayoc hated his victims but had not meant to kill them.
Prosecutors had sought a life sentence for the 57-year-old former pizza delivery man and strip club worker whose "campaign of terror," they said, coincided with the run-up to the 2018 midterm elections. In all, he mailed 16 inoperative pipe bombs targeting, among others, former President Barack Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the New York offices of CNN.
"I am beyond so very sorry for what I did," Sayoc told U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff. "Now that I am a sober man, I know that I was a sick man. I should have listened to my mother, the love of my life."
Prosecutors and defense lawyers spent much of Monday's hearing wrangling over how dangerous the packages truly were to those who handled them.
"What counts is what he did, and what he intended at the time that he did it," Rakoff said, calling Sayoc's actions "by any measure horrendous."
The judge concluded that Sayoc, "though no firearms expert, was fully capable" of building a functioning bomb if he had wanted to do so. "He hated his victims," the judge added, "but did not wish them dead, at least not by his own hand."
Sayoc's defense lawyer, Ian Marcus Amelkin, pushed for a 10-year sentence, saying he was using large quantities of steroids when he became obsessed in his support for Trump, consuming conspiracy theories from Fox News and elsewhere that fed his rising paranoia.
"It is impossible to separate the political climate and his mental illness when it comes to the slow boil," Marcus said.
Prosecutors downplayed Trump's rhetoric as a cause.
"He's offered a whole slew of excuses blaming politicians, politics and the news media" for his actions, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Jane Kim. She said Sayoc's goal was to "deter and chill political activity."
Rakoff broadly agreed with Kim's assessment, saying that he "wasn't particularly impressed" by the defense team's claims about the influence of Trump or others, calling that a "sideshow."
Rakoff said Sayoc's mental state provided a stark example of "how dysfunctional life, even in our great society, can sometimes be."
The Sayoc case began weeks before the 2018 congressional elections. The suspicious packages prompted a nationwide manhunt, a trail of evidence pointing investigators to the Fort Lauderdale, Fla., area and, eventually, to Sayoc, who lived out of a white van plastered with pro-Trump images. He worked as a DJ or bouncer at strip clubs, and was once charged with threatening the local power company.
After his arrest, Sayoc pleaded guilty in March to 65 counts. Officials said he targeted current and former government officials across the country. In addition to Clinton and Obama, he sent devices to former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, actor Robert De Niro, Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., former Attorney General Eric Holder, billionaires George Soros and Thomas Steyer, and Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif.
A Section on 08/06/2019