Trump, ‘Fox News’ Motivated Bomber Cesar Sayoc, Lawyers Say
Last year, a man named Cesar Sayoc of Florida sent a series of 16 bombs to Democratic politicians and media outlets, though none of the bombs exploded or injured anyone. Sayoc, earlier this year, agreed to plead guilty and faced life in prison. Now his lawyers are making claims about the “MAGA bomber” and his motivations.
Per The Daily Beast, Sayoc’s attorneys argue that he lived a solitary life, in which he lived in a van and worked jobs as a strip club DJ and pizza delivery man. He was plagued by “cognitive limitations, mental illness and the use of steroids.”
Sayoc, the report said, also believed that employees of Papa John’s, where he worked, were in danger due to racist comments made by the company’s founder, John Schnatter. Schnatter resigned as chairman of the company in mid-2018, per The Inquisitr.
Sayoc’s van, as reported at the time, was decorated nearly top-to-bottom with Trump-related stickers.
“In this darkness, Mr. Sayoc found light in Donald J. Trump,” the lawyers said, as Sayoc also watched Fox News at the gym and began sharing conspiracy theories on social media.
The attorneys went on to argue that Sayoc’s decision to send the bombs came not long after the president declared, in 2018, that Democrats “want to destroy people” and are “really evil people.”
The filing comes as the lawyers are seeking favorable sentencing for their client.
Among those to whom Sayoc sent bombs were former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, former vice president and presidential candidate Joseph Biden, Senators and presidential candidates Cory Booker and Kamala Harris, former Attorney General Eric Holder, donors Tom Steyer and George Soros, former CIA director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and actor Robert De Niro. All, to some degree, have been public critics of President Trump.
Domestic terrorist Cesar Sayoc — a Donald Trump “super fan” who saw the president as a “surrogate father” — came to believe in an “alternative reality” because of Trump’s attacks and his media diet, his attorneys say: https://t.co/OCGctPQj6S
— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) July 23, 2019
Sayoc, per CNN, pleaded guilty to more than 60 charges in connection with the case.
Sayoc was not the only person arrested in recent months for threatening multiple Democratic politicians.
Per The Inquisitr, a Utah man by the name of Scott Haven was arrested earlier this year on federal charges that he made over 2,000 phone calls to Congress, and made several death threats against elected officials. Haven, prosecutors said, threatened to “slice” the heads of two U.S. senators.
The month before, a Florida man named John Kless was arrested for threatening several members of Congress, including Sen. Booker, Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.
