More information has emerged regarding the mysterious background of 58-year-old Ryan Routh, a staunch supporter of the US-NATO war against Russia in Ukraine, who stalked and attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump this past Sunday at his West Palm Beach golf course.
On Monday, the formal charging documents were issued in the Southern District of Florida. According to the eight-page indictment, on September 15, at 1:59 in the morning, Routh’s cell phone was pinged in the vicinity of the tree line of the golf course. Records from T-Mobile indicate this is where Routh and the cell phone would remain for approximately 12 hours, until 1:31 p.m.
The indictment confirmed that after the Secret Service shot at Routh as he was laying in wait, police recovered a digital camera, two bags, including a backpack with ceramic tile in it, a black plastic bag containing food and a “loaded SKS-style 7.62x39 caliber rifle with a scope.” Author of the indictment, FBI Special Agent Mark Thomas wrote that, based on his “training and experience,” the “SKS-style 7.62x39 caliber rifle” is “not manufactured in the State of Florida.”
The fact that Routh had any weapon at all is highly suspect given his multi-decade criminal record.
The indictment confirmed that Routh had previously been convicted in December 2002 in Greensboro, North Carolina, of “possession of a weapon of mass death and destruction.” The Greensboro News & Record reported at the time that, following a 10:00 p.m. traffic stop, Routh evaded police and eventually barricaded himself inside a business he then owned, United Roofing.
After a three-hour standoff, Routh was taken into custody, and police recovered a fully automatic machine gun, hence the “weapon of mass destruction” charge. The indictment also confirmed that eight years after barricading himself with a machine gun, Routh was convicted of “multiple counts of possession of stolen goods.” Both crimes are felonies, with the former carrying a nearly five-year prison sentence and the latter 39 months.
However, after being convicted in 2002 of “possessing a weapon of mass death and destruction,” Routh was ordered to get a mental health assessment and placed on supervised probation for 60 months.
From 2002 through 2010, Routh faced a litany of other charges, including misdemeanors, such as carrying a concealed weapon, hit and run, writing bad checks, and resisting law enforcement, for which he does not appear to have spent much time behind bars.
In an interview with the Greensboro News & Record on Thursday, retired Greensboro Police Department Officer Eric Rasecke said he knew Routh well enough to have established a “friendly rapport” with the man.
Rasecke said he noticed a “difference in his state of mind and appearance over the years,” which he attributed to drug abuse. “He lost a bunch of weight, his eyes became withdrawn into his head, his teeth were rotting out, he was shaking, he was gaunt. He was hypersensitive ... everything indicative of him being a crack user.”
In addition to being well known to local police, the FBI confirmed on Monday that they had previously received a tip concerning Routh. On Monday, FBI special agent in charge of the Miami field office, Jeffrey Veltri, confirmed that a tipster in 2019 warned the FBI that Routh “was a felon in possession of a firearm.”
Veltri wrote that the tip at the time could not be verified and that the FBI “passed the information to local law enforcement in Honolulu.”
Despite voting for Trump in 2016, Routh turned sharply against the former president during his term, largely based on Routh’s support for all-out war with Russia. Between 2019 and 2020, Routh donated over $120 to Democratic Party politicians. He indicated in his donations that he was “unemployed.”
Despite this background, Routh was able travel out of the country following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Upon returning from recruiting for the war effort, Routh was photographed with the founder of the World Central Kitchen Chef José Andrés, a highly connected celebrity chef in Washington D.C.
Routh, as previously reported, was interviewed by major news outlets such as the New York Times, Semafor and Newsweek Romaina. Routh was interviewed by Taiwan News for a June 8, 2022 article.
In the article, Routh claimed to have been assisting the International Foreign Legion to recruit “volunteers for the Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie units in Kharkiv.” The author of the report, Keoni Everington, wrote, “Thus far, Routh has assisted in recruiting 70 volunteers to join the fight against Russia.”
In addition to recruiting volunteers for the Ukrainian military, Routh appeared in a propaganda video for the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion while in Kiev.
In a post on X/Twitter on September 16, Azov confirmed that Routh was at “a rally in support of the Mariupol garrison,” but that he allegedly “has no connection to Azov and has never had any connection to Azov.” It added that any “spread of the narrative” is “playing along with Russian propaganda and discredits the 12th Special Forces Brigade Azov of the National Guard of Ukraine and the Security and Defense Forces of Ukraine in general.”