A friend informed CNN that the man who reportedly attacked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband early on Friday posted memes and conspiracies on Facebook regarding Covid vaccinations, the 2020 election, and the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
The suspect in the assault on Paul Pelosi at the speaker’s San Francisco residence has been named by police as David DePape, 42.
DePape is alienated from his family, according to two of his relatives, who also confirmed that he was the owner of the Facebook account that was deleted by the social media giant on Friday.
David DePape, according to his stepfather Gene DePape, was raised in Powell River, British Columbia, and moved to California about 20 years ago to pursue a romance.
David DePape falsely claimed that the 2020 election had been rigged in a number of films that he shared and linked to on his Facebook page last year. Other posts linked to websites that claimed Covid vaccinations were harmful and contained transphobic pictures. According to one post, “The death rates being marketed are whatever ‘THEY’ desire to be promoted as the death rate.”
Additionally, DePape sent links to movies on YouTube with headlines like “Democrat FARCE Commission to Investigate January 6th Capitol Riot COLLAPSES in Congress!!!” and “Global Elites Plan To Take Control Of YOUR Money! (Revealed)”.
DePape argued that the trial was “a modern lynching” two days after former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin was convicted guilty of killing George Floyd, misrepresenting Floyd’s cause of death as a narcotics overdose.
He also published articles on the “Great Reset,” a vast conspiracy theory that contends that world leaders are utilizing the coronavirus to bring about a new world order in which they will have more control and will enslave the populace. He also expressed displeasure that politicians “are selling you money in exchange for your greater servitude” when they make pledges in an effort to obtain votes.
On DePape’s Facebook profile, the majority of the public posts were from 2021. DePape used to make lengthy religious rants on his website, in which he asserted that “Jesus is the anti-Christ.”
Pelosi didn’t appear to be mentioned in any of the open posts.
DePape had two former pals in California who told CNN that he had demonstrated unsettling behavior over time.
According to Linda Schneider, DePape and she first met eight years ago, and he has since periodically housesat for her. She claimed that when they first spoke, DePape, who was then doing hard drugs and living in a storage unit near Berkeley, told her he was “trying to establish a new life for himself.”
DePape sent Schneider subsequent “very unsettling” emails in which, according to Schneider, he came out as a “megalomaniac and so out of touch with reality.” She remembers him “using Biblical reason to inflict damage,” and she said she stopped speaking with him “because it sounded so unsafe.”
Laura Hayes, who also resides in California, recalled working with DePape for a short period of time producing hemp bracelets around ten years ago, while he was still residing in a storage shed outside Berkeley. She said that DePape ran a company selling bracelets.
“He was pretty strange. He wasn’t very good at eye contact, “explained Hayes. She remembered him telling her that “there will be a rough period ahead” and that “he talks to angels.” She claimed she didn’t think much of it because “it’s Berkeley,” a location where eccentric personalities are ubiquitous, but she couldn’t recall any genuinely threatening remarks.