More Dribbles Out About Ryan Routh

There's been a certain amount of anxiety over the US Justice Departmebnt's release of a handwritten letter from wannabe Trump assassin Ryan Routh offering $150,000 to anyone who can "complete the job" -- except that it was found in a box Routh left with an unnamed contact months before his September 15 arrest. In many ways, the letter raises the least of the new questions. Here is more of what came out in yesterdays bail hearing, via USA Today:

Routh allegedly left the handwritten letter in a metal box with someone, who wasn’t named in the court filing from prosecutors, months before the incident at the golf course. The witness opened the box after hearing about Routh's arrest, and law enforcement visited the person Sept. 18. The box also contained ammunition, a metal pipe, building materials, four phones and several letters, prosecutors said.

“This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I failed you,” said the letter, a picture of which appears in the court filing. “I tried my best and gave it all the gumption I could muster. It is up to you now to finish the job; and I will offer $150,000 to whomever can complete the job.”

. . . The FBI’s analysis of Routh’s phone showed that he traveled from the area around Greensboro, North Carolina, to West Palm Beach, Florida, on Aug.14. On multiple days and times from Aug. 18 to Sept. 15, Routh’s phone accessed cell towers near Trump International Golf Club and the former president’s residence at Mar-a-Lago.

After local authorities pulled Routh over in a black Nissan Xterra seen leaving the golf course, officers discovered license plates didn’t belong to the vehicle. FBI agents found two additional license plates inside, along with six cellphones, 12 pairs of gloves, a Hawaii driver’s license, a passport and a handwritten list of dates in August, September and October where the former president had been or was expected.

One of the cellphones contained a search query asking how to travel from Palm Beach County to Mexico.

Via NBC Los Angeles,

Cell site records from two of the phones indicated Routh had traveled from Greensboro, North Carolina, to West Palm Beach on Aug. 14.

Further, on “multiple days and times from Aug. 18, 2024, to Sept. 15, 2024, Routh’s cellphone accessed cell towers located near Trump International and the former president’s residence at Mar-a-Lago,” the filing said.

His defense attorney said Routh’s sister is a licensed attorney in North Carolina and was willing to house him if he was released on bail. Ultimately, U.S. Magistrate Judge Ryon M. McCabe ruled Routh would be held pending his trial.

A web search tells me the Nissan Xterra was discontinued in 2015, so this is probably not a rental. The fake license plates suggest it could be stolen, or it might belong to Routh's sister in North Carolina. A web searchfor "Routh sister" comes up empty. A search on the North Carolina bar site brings up a Ms Kelly R Routh in Charlotte. The Routh Law web site says it specializes in family law, but there is nothing to indicate any connection to a Ryan Routh. However, this same attorney Kelly R Routh is listed as receiving a 5-year disciplinary suspension in 2022 for mishandling entrusted funds. Her web site says nothing about her suspension.

If his sister is an attorney, this may help explain the apparently lenient treatment Ryan has previously received for his previous criminal convictions. Commentators have occasionally raised the question of how Routh could have been charged in 2002 with

possession of a fully automatic machine gun, referred to in court filings as a weapon of mass destruction[, a felony]. He was also charged with carrying a concealed weapon, as well as driving without a valid license and resisting, delaying, and obstructing law enforcement, according to Greensboro News and Record.

While the disposition of the case isn’t entirely clear, Routh did plead guilty to carrying a concealed gun.

Possession of a weapon of mass destruction in North Carolina is a Class F felony, which can result in up to 41 months in prison. Routh's prior criminal record should have resulted in a more severe penalty than what he eventually seems to have received. Another source says,

In exchange for pleading guilty, the state gave him 60 months of probation where his firearms and explosives were seized and destroyed by Greensboro police. He also had to have a mental evaluation. (Editor's note: we are working to see if Routh completed this requirement and how it went).

Records also show Routh's criminal background in North Carolina stretches back to 1984 when he had a failure to report an accident charge.

In 2010, Routh said he had never tried drugs or alcohol. That's the same year he was convicted of possession of stolen property. A judge wrote that Routh's stolen property conviction was the possession of three trailers of stolen tools and building materials (welding torches, tanks, carts, power cords, etc) from sites where he worked as a roofer. He also had a stolen pickup truck.

A police investigator found Routh kept the stolen property at his business and the property was a big mess. When a neighbor asked him to clean up the property "he pulled a knife on him and told him to leave the property."

The property owner said Routh was using the property with no lease and without her knowledge.

We're still left with the question of how Routh lived in Florida between August 14 and September 15, and the separate question for his sister as an attorney -- it's hard to avoid thinking that, given her brother's record, she knew, or should have known, he was up to no good. At least for now, she's starting to look like an enabler at best, leaving aside the possible suspension of the attorney Kelly Routh, which doesn't bode well for her own future.

But the most we can say for the time being is that the prosecutors seem to have a great deal more than they've made public.