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Left: U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon (U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida). Right: Ryan Wesley Routh arrested by deputies in Florida on Sept. 15, 2024 (Martin County Sheriff’s Office).
Attorneys representing the second man who allegedly attempted to assassinate Donald Trump last year are asking a federal judge in Florida to throw out statements from a witness identifying him as the individual with a high-powered rifle at one of the president’s golf courses.
Ryan W. Routh on Monday filed court documents claiming that allowing the statements from the witness — identified in the filing as “T.C.M.” — would be unconstitutional. The case is before U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee whose rulings in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case largely cut that prosecution off at the knees.
“The identification procedures used to implicate Ryan Routh in this case were impermissibly suggestive and violated his constitutional right to due process,” Routh wrote in the 13-page filing. “Both the show-up identification conducted on Interstate 95 and the subsequent photographic identification procedure, where T.C.M. was shown a single photograph of Mr. Routh, were unnecessarily suggestive and created a substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification.”
As Law&Crime previously reported, Routh in September 2024 was arrested in Florida after a Secret Service agent allegedly spotted him with a rifle “in the exterior brush along the fence line near the 6th hole putting green” at the Trump International Golf Club as the former president golfed one hole behind. Authorities have said that the agent opened fire, leading Routh to flee the scene in a Nissan Xterra.
Investigators later emphasized that the witness statement from T.C.M. was instrumental in identifying and detaining Routh.
After Routh’s arrest, authorities said they found a letter addressed to the “world” stating that “[t]his was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I am so sorry I failed you.” Routh had been camped out for some 12 hours waiting for Trump to golf, according to court documents.
Routh was later indicted on charges of attempting to assassinate a major presidential candidate, assaulting a federal officer, being a felon in possession of a firearm, possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number, and using a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence.
But according to Routh, police utilized an “inherently suggestive show-up identification procedure” — meaning that Routh was the only suspect presented to the witness — which drastically increased the likelihood that he would be misidentified.
“Here, the police exacerbated the suggestiveness of this procedure by presenting a suspect bound in handcuffs, in a police car, and surrounded by law enforcement,” the filing states. “Furthermore, T.C.M. had dozens of law enforcement from numerous state and federal agencies watching him, thousands of stranded pedestrians on the highway awaiting this airlift and show-up, and knowledge that his identification was necessary in a case involving presidential candidate Donald Trump. All of these circumstances created a heightened pressure to make the identification.”
Prosecutors on Monday filed their own series of motions, one of which claimed that prior to his arrest, the defendant attempted to acquire a “rocket propelled grenade,” or RPG, among other military-style weapons in connection with the alleged assassination attempt.
According to the filing, Routh attempted to purchase the RPG from an associate he believed was Ukrainian and had access to military weapons. During a chat through an encrypted app in August 2024, Routh and the purported Ukrainian were allegedly discussing the previous attempt on Trump’s life.
“[S]end me an RPG [rocket propelled grenade] or stinger and I will see what we can do …[Trump] is not good for Ukraine,” Routh wrote, per the filing. “I need equipment so that Trump cannot get elected.”
Routh has pleaded not guilty to the aforementioned charges. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of life in a federal prison.
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