The man who pleaded guilty to sending pipe bombs to CNN and prominent Democrats across the nation last year was radicalized by Fox News and President Trump’s tweets, his lawyers have reportedly argued in a memo.
BuzzFeed News reports attorneys for Cesar Altieri Sayoc, 57, argued their client suffered from “cognitive limitations and mental illness” in a sentencing memo filed Monday.
The lawyers argue that through daily consuming of Trump’s tweets and Fox News shows, Sayoc came to believe that “prominent Democrats were actively working to hurt him, other Trump supporters, and the country as a whole.”
“After months suffering from these delusional beliefs and while using large doses of steroids, his heightened paranoia and anger pushed him to commit these offenses,” the outlet reports the memo said.{mosads}
Lawyers said Sayoc grew increasingly isolated, fueling his “feelings of anxiety and paranoia,” but “in this darkness” he “found light in Donald J. Trump,” BuzzFeed reports.
Sayoc, from Florida, pleaded guilty in March to sending 16 pipe bombs to more than a dozen people and entities including CNN, 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, former President Obama and Democratic donor George Soros.
The bombs did not explode and there were no reported injuries.
Sayoc faces 65 counts, including using a weapon of mass destruction, mailing explosives with intent to kill and interstate transportation of an explosive.
Sayoc is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 12.