Ryan W. Routh, suspected of attempting to kill Republican presidential candidate and former US President Donald Trump on a golf course in West Palm Beach, stands in handcuffs after his arrest during a traffic stop near Palm City, Florida, USA, September 15, 2024.
Martin County Sheriff’s Office | Via Reuters
A federal judge in Florida ordered on Monday that Ryan Routh, the alleged would-be assassin of Donald Trump, be held without bail pending trial.
The order came hours after prosecutors said in court that Ruth stalked Trump for a month in Florida before his Sept. 15 arrest. Ruth, 58, was arrested less than an hour after a Secret Service agent shot Ruth, who was reportedly standing with a rifle outside a golf course where the former president was playing.
Prosecutors said during a hearing in US District Court in West Palm Beach, Florida on Monday that they plan to ask a grand jury to indict Routh on criminal charges related to the attempted assassination of Trump. But he currently faces only two gun-related charges.
The filing revealed that months earlier, Ruth had given another person a box containing a handwritten letter that read: “This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump, but I failed you.”
A prosecutor during Monday’s hearing told Judge Ryon McCabe that the only “established ties” Routh had to the federal Southern District of Florida “are for one reason only and that was to kill former President Trump.”
Courtroom sketch for Ryan Routh
Artist: Lothar Speer
Routh’s cellphone records show he “traveled from the Greensboro, North Carolina, area to West Palm Beach, Florida” on Aug. 14, according to the filing in U.S. District Court in West Palm Beach.
“On multiple days and hours from August 18, 2024 through September 15, 2024, Ruth’s cell phone accessed cell towers located near Trump International [Golf Course] and the former President’s residence at Mar-a-Lago” in Palm Beach, the filing said.
And when he was arrested after leaving his hideout just outside the golf course, Ruth was in possession of a “handwritten list of dates in August, September and October 2024 and places where the former President had appeared or was expected to to be present”. the filing said.
The filing, known as an offer, was made by prosecutors in support of their request that a judge order him held without bail at the hearing.
Routh is charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.
Trump, who is the Republican presidential nominee, narrowly survived an assassination attempt during a campaign rally in western Pennsylvania on July 13. One rally attendee was killed and two other attendees were wounded in the shooting, which ended when a Secret Service sniper killed the robber.
On Monday, after a nearly three-hour detention hearing for Ruth, Trump accused the Justice Department of “mishandling and downplaying the second attempt on my life since July.”
“The charges brought against the maniacal killer are a slap on the wrist,” Trump said in a statement. “No wonder, since the DOJ and FBI have been relentlessly after me with Weaponized Lawfare since I announced my first Historic Campaign for the Presidency.”
Trump also suggested the state of Florida should handle the criminal prosecution of Ruth “if the Department of Justice and the FBI cannot do their jobs honestly and without bias.”
Courtroom sketch for Ryan Routh
Artist: Lothar Speer
On Sept. 15, Trump was playing the fifth hole at Trump International when a Secret Service agent conducting a security sweep “spotted a man’s partially obscured face in the brush along the fence line” near the sixth hole green, according to with the court he said. The man was later identified as Ruth.
The agent, after seeing the barrel of a rifle pointed directly at him, jumped out of the golf cart, drew his gun and then shot Ruth, according to the filing.
Ruth then fled the area.
Photo of the SKS rifle said to have been used in an apparent assassination attempt on Republican presidential candidate and former US President Donald Trump in this undated handout image.
US District Court Southern District of Florida | Via Reuters
Trump, who was several hundred yards away at the time, was “immediately removed” from the march by Secret Service agents, the filing said.
Routh was arrested by police about 45 minutes later after fleeing in a Nissan Xterra.
FBI agents who searched the area outside the golf course where he was first spotted found an SKS semi-automatic rifle that had an attached scope and an extended magazine, according to the filing, which said 11 rounds of ammunition were found in the rifle, including a round in the chamber”. The rifle’s serial number was obliterated.
“Agents also found a digital camera, a backpack and a reusable shopping bag hanging from the chain link fence,” the affidavit said.
Both the backpack and shopping bag “contained plates” that ballistics tests later showed “were capable of stopping small arms fire,” the affidavit said.
Bags hang from a fence above a rifle resting on it after the Secret Service foiled what the FBI called an apparent assassination attempt on Republican presidential candidate and former US President Donald Trump while he was golfing on his course in West Palm Beach, Florida USA September 15, 2024.
Pbso | Via Reuters
The Nissan Routh was driving had a different license plate than the one registered to the vehicle, prosecutors said in the filing.
“During a search of the Nissan Xterra … FBI agents located two additional license plates,” the affidavit said.
The photo below shows the obliterated serial number on the rifle said to have been used in an apparent assassination attempt against Republican presidential candidate and former US President Donald Trump in this undated handout image.
US District Court Southern District of Florida | Via Reuters
“Agents also found six cell phones. One of the cell phones contained a Google search on how to travel from Palm Beach County to Mexico,” the affidavit said. “Agents also found 12 pairs of gloves, a Hawaii driver’s license in the defendant’s name, a passport in the defendant’s name.”
And agents found the handwritten list of dates where Trump had appeared or was expected to be present, according to the filing.
Also in the car was “a notebook with dozens of pages filled with names and phone numbers related to Ukraine, discussions of how to join the fight on behalf of Ukraine, and notes criticizing the governments of China and Russia,” the affidavit said.
FBI agents also examined a book apparently written by Routh in February 2023, titled “Ukraine’s Unwinnable War: The Fatal Flaw of Democracy, World Abandonment and the Global Citizen-Taiwan, Afghanistan, North Korea, World War III and the end of humanity”.
The perimeter of Trump International is surrounded by a chain-link fence, and the southeast corner of the drive is covered by trees and brush. The 6th hole of the course is located near the southeast corner as shown on the map.
DOJ
Three days after his arrest, a civilian witness contacted authorities and told them that “Ruth had left a box at his residence several months prior,” according to the filing.
“The witness stated that the box contained ammunition, a metal pipe, various building materials, tools, four telephones and various letters,” the affidavit said.
A handwritten letter addressed to Cosmo said, among other things, “This was an assassination attempt against Donald Trump, but I failed you. I tried my best and gave it my best.”
Among other things, the letter said: “He [the former President] he ended relations with Iran like a child and now the Middle East is solved.”
Routh is legally barred from owning a firearm because of two prior felony convictions in North Carolina state court, detailed in Monday’s court filing.
He was convicted in December 2002 of possessing a weapon of mass destruction, described as a binary explosive device.
In March 2010, he was convicted of multiple counts of possession of stolen property, the filing noted.
