The government contended at a pretrial detention hearing on Monday that Ryan Routh’s presence in West Palm Beach on September 15 and over the following month was “for one reason and one reason only, and that was to kill the former president of the United States.”
Cellphones discovered in Routh’s Nissan, according to the prosecution, revealed he had been following Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and Trump International Golf Club on several occasions between August 18 and September 15.
And it was in what they called nothing less than a sniper’s nest—the treeline, 100 feet from the sixth green—that an agent eventually found him hiding.
A loaded SKS semiautomatic weapon with a round in the chamber was leaning against the fence.
The gun’s tape piece matched Routh’s fingerprints.
They claim that two backpacks filled with plates could have deflected gunshots.
According to the authorities, a witness came forward after Routh was arrested and claimed that a few months earlier, Routh had given him a metal box, which he opened to find tools, ammo, and a handwritten note addressed to everyone, claiming that this was an effort to assassinate Donald Trump that had failed.
Prosecutors described Routh as a flight risk and a threat to the community, but Routh’s attorneys contended that he should be released on home arrest.
They also want to request that a grand jury consider filing an attempted assassination case.
The court decided to detain Routh without bond pending the outcome of the legal proceedings.
