David DePape: The person who attacked Paul Pelosi with a hammer, is a nudist far-right conspiracy theorist

David DePape, 42, grew up in Powell River, British Columbia, earlier than leaving about 20 years in the past to comply with an older girlfriend to San Francisco. A road deal with listed for DePape within the Bay Space school city of Berkeley led to a put up workplace field at a UPS Retailer.

DePape was arrested on the Pelosi residence early Friday. San Francisco District Lawyer Brooke Jenkins stated she anticipated to file a number of felony costs, together with tried homicide, assault with a lethal weapon, housebreaking and elder abuse.

Stepfather Gene DePape stated the suspect had lived with him in Canada till he was 14 and had been a quiet boy.

“David was by no means violent that I seen and was by no means in any hassle though he was very reclusive and performed an excessive amount of video video games,” Gene DePape stated.

He stated he hasn’t seen his stepson since 2003 and tried to get in contact with him a number of instances through the years with out success.

“In 2007, I attempted to get in contact however his girlfriend hung up on me once I requested to speak to him,“ Gene DePape stated.

David DePape was identified in Berkeley as a pro-nudity activist who had picketed bare at protests towards native ordinances requiring individuals to be clothed in public.

Gene DePape stated the girlfriend whom his son adopted to California was named Gypsy they usually had two kids collectively. DePape additionally has a baby with a distinct lady, his stepfather stated.

Images revealed by The San Francisco Chronicle on Friday recognized DePape frolicking nude exterior metropolis corridor with dozens of others on the 2013 wedding ceremony of pro-nudity activist Gypsy Taub, who was marrying one other man. Taub didn’t reply Friday to calls or emails.

A 2013 article in The Chronicle described David DePape as a “hemp jewellery maker” who lived in a Victorian flat in Berkeley with Taub, who hosted a chat present on native public-access TV known as “Uncensored 9/11,” during which she appeared bare and pushed conspiracy theories that the 2001 terrorist assaults had been “an inside job.”

A pair of internet blogs posted in current months on-line below the identify David DePape contained rants about know-how, aliens, communists, non secular minorities and world elites.

An Aug. 24 entry titled “Q,” displayed a scatological assortment of memes that included pictures of the deceased intercourse offender Jeffrey Epstein and made reference to QAnon, the baseless pro-Trump conspiracy principle that espouses the idea that the nation is run by a deep state cabal of kid intercourse traffickers, satanic pedophiles and baby-eating cannibals.

“Massive Brother has deemed doing your personal analysis as a thought crime,” learn a put up that appeared to mix references to QAnon with George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984.”

In an Aug. 25 entry titled “Gun Rights,” the poster wrote: “You now not have rights. Your primary human rights hinder Massive Brothers capacity to enslave and management you in an entire and totalizing method.”

The webhosting service WordPress eliminated one of many websites Friday afternoon for violating its phrases of service.

On a distinct web site, somebody posting below DePape’s identify repeated false claims about COVID vaccines and carrying masks, questioned whether or not local weather change is actual and displayed an illustration of a zombified Hillary Clinton eating on human flesh.

There gave the impression to be no direct posts about Pelosi, however there have been entries defending former President Donald Trump and Ye, the rapper formally referred to as Kanye West who lately made antisemitic feedback.

In different posts, the author stated Jews helped finance Hitler’s political rise in Germany and urged an antisemitic plot was concerned in Russia’s current invasion of Ukraine.

In a Sept. 27 put up, the author stated any journalists who denied Trump’s false claims of widespread voter fraud within the 2020 presidential election “must be dragged straight out into the road and shot.”

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AP World Investigative Reporter Michael Biesecker reported from Washington and Breaking Information Investigative Reporter Bernard Condon from New York. Reporters Stefanie Dazio in Los Angeles, Olga Rodriguez in San Francisco and information researcher Jennifer Farrar in New York contributed to this report.

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