In another pre-trial hearing in San Francisco Superior Court Wednesday morning, accused Paul Pelosi attacker David DePape again entered a plea of not guilty to the attempted murder charge against him, and he now won't be back in court for two months.
We are likely a long way out from the actual trials of David DePape, the East Bay carpenter and former transient — and onetime romantic partner of nudist activist Gypsy Taub — accused of assaulting Paul Pelosi with a hammer on October 28. He'll be tried in both state and federal court on multiple charges, including the attempted murder of Paul Pelosi, and the attempted kidnapping of a federal officer (Nancy Pelosi).
For now, as of today, DePape has been ordered to stand trial and his next court date has been set for February 23, at which point his state trial date may be set. And DePape appeared in court today, as KPIX reports, in a short hearing in which he again entered a plea of not guilty to the state charges against him. Further, he has waived his right to a speedy trial, which all but guarantees this trial won't start before summer or fall.
In the evidentiary hearing earlier this month, SFPD Sgt. Carla Hurley shared more details about the statements DePape allegedly made in the hours after the attack on Pelosi.
By way of motive for his going to the Pelosis' home, DePape reportedly said, "There is evil in Washington, what they did went so far beyond the campaign. It originates with Hillary... Honestly, day in day out, they are lying. They go from one crime to another crime to another crime."
And at the scene, while medics were attending to an unconscious and bleeding Paul Pelosi, DePape allegedly said, "I'm sick of the insane fucking level of lies coming out of Washington, D.C. I came here to have a little chat with his wife. I didn't really want to hurt him, but you know this was a suicide mission. I'm not going to stand here and do nothing even if it cost me my life."
DePape also allegedly told Hurley that his list of targets included Governor Gavin Newsom, Hunter Biden, actor Tom Hanks, and feminist theorist/leather culture historian Dr. Gayle Rubin.
As we've learned from his friend and former employer, Frank Ciccarelli, DePape had only in the last couple of years gotten off the street after a stint of homelessness in Berkeley — following his 2015 breakup with Taub — and he'd taken up residence in a converted garage studio apartment in Richmond. It was there, according to Ciccarelli, that DePape had the time and internet access to go down all the right-wing and conspiratorial rabbit-holes that led him to want to do harm to Nancy Pelosi, and to become obsessed with the various Pizzagate and QAnon nonsense that gets peddled in such rabbit holes.
He had also, in some recent blog posts — on a blog no one was likely reading — dabbled in racism and antisemitism. And he observed of his own radicalization that it had all begun with Gamergate, the 2014 morass of misogyny that grew out of frustration with political correctness and progressiveness in gaming, and ties between a female video game developer and a male video game critic — and which has been credited with adding kindling to growing harassment of women on social media, and right-wing trolling generally.
Ironically, DePape was not legally able to vote in this country, though he had registered as a Green Party member and may have voted once in San Francisco in 2002. He is a Canadian national who has lived, apparently fairly constantly, in the U.S. since around 2000, much of that time in Taub's household. And he is reportedly the father of two of Taub's children.
Taub previously said that DePape had, in earlier years, been a fan of Barack Obama, but he, like her, believed in a shadow government and in various conspiracy theories.
