Cesar Sayoc gets 20 years in prison for mailing pipe bombs to Trump critics

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published 5 August 2019

Cesar Sayoc has been sentenced to 20 years in prison after mailing pipe bombs to people and entities perceived to be critics of President Trump.

Sayoc sent 16 packages to Democratic politicians and news entities back in October, and pleaded guilty to 65 counts and to sending the packages back in March. Despite his lawyers arguing for a 10-year sentence due to an apparent untreated mental illness, Sayoc received 20 years in prison in a Monday appearance in a Manhattan federal court, The New York Times reports.

On Monday, Sayoc listed off the names of the people he'd mailed packages to, including former President Barack Obama, billionaire donor George Soros, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. "I will be apologizing to them for the rest of my life," Sayoc said in court. He also claimed that "now that I am a sober man, I know that I was a sick man" when he chose to send the packages. Sayoc's public defenders had previously attributed his crimes to a mix of steroids and a heavy diet of Fox News.

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Sayoc sparked panic and a frenzy of false alarms when he sent out 16 packages to Democratic politicians, liberal donors, and news entities back in October. The devices inside the packages were crude pipe bombs that probably wouldn't have ignited, and his lawyers claimed Sayoc "did not think that the devices were capable of exploding." Government prosecutors argued that the devices' actual danger wasn't the point.

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Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.

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