Ryan Routh Found Guilty On All Charges In Trump Assassination Attempt

Update (1430ET): After just 2 hours of deliberation, Ryan Routh has been found guilty on all charges for attempting to assassinate President Trump at his West Palm Beach, Florida golf course in 2024.

🚨 BREAKING: Attempted Donald Trump assassin Ryan Routh found GUILTY on all charges, faces up to life in prison pic.twitter.com/LGNLNpQlaU

— Florida’s Voice (@FLVoiceNews) September 23, 2025

AG Pam Bondi wrote on X:

Today’s guilty verdict against would-be Trump assassin Ryan Routh illustrates the Department of Justice’s commitment to punishing those who engage in political violence.

This attempted assassination was not only an attack on our President, but an affront to our very nation itself.

I am grateful to Jason Quinones, his entire trial team, and our law enforcement partners for protecting President Trump and securing this important verdict.

As Jacob Burg and Sam Dorman reported earlier via The Epoch Times, jurors entered deliberation on Sept. 23 after closing arguments in the trial of Ryan Routh, the man accused of attempting to assassinate then-presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump in September 2024.

Routh, who represented himself, faces years in prison with multiple charges, including attempted assassination. The trial started earlier this month with testimony from authorities on the scene at Trump’s golf club in Florida, where Routh allegedly sought to shoot Trump. Routh himself did not testify during the trial.

In his closing arguments, Routh tried to portray himself as someone who wouldn’t kill another person.

“If the intent was there, it would have happened,” Routh said.

He was also stopped multiple times by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon for straying from evidence at issue in the trial. The Justice Department urged the jury to use common sense and that various pieces of evidence pointed to Routh’s guilt.

Opening arguments began nearly a year after the incident on Sept. 15, 2024, and just a day after the assassination of conservative commentator and Trump ally Charlie Kirk. It followed a lengthy pretrial period in which Routh decided to represent himself and submitted various court documents, such as one requesting to subpoena Trump and suggesting a golf match with the president that would end with either Routh dying or becoming president himself.

Routh was indicted last year for attempting to assassinate Trump after entering the tree line at the president’s golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Sept. 15, 2024, and waiting for him for hours in a “hideout” behind a chain-link fence.

Routh was allegedly staking out the golf course’s sixth hole with an SKS-style semiautomatic rifle, two bags affixed to the fence with bulletproof plates inside, and several other items authorities found—such as flashlights and Vienna sausages—after he fled onto an adjacent street, prosecutors said.

The defendant said his argument centered on proving his “gentleness and nonviolence.” Two longtime associates appeared on the witness stand on Monday and testified about Routh’s past efforts at community engagement and helping friends and family.

Prosecutors disputed this portrayal by questioning Routh’s witnesses about their lack of contact with him over the past seven years, and by piecing together various items of evidence purporting to show Routh’s premeditated intention to assassinate Trump.

Prosecutors also triangulated Routh’s movements and whereabouts leading up to the alleged assassination attempt with data from his various cellphones recovered the day of the incident, attempting to prove he was both “stalking” Trump and planning for months to kill the president, who was the Republican Party’s presidential nominee at the time.