Man charged with killing Minnesota lawmaker plans to plead not guilty

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A Minnesota man plans to plead not guilty to charges he killed the top Democratic leader in the state House and her husband after wounding another lawmaker and his wife, his attorney said.

Vance Boelter, 57, is due in federal court for his arraignment on Sept. 12 under an order issued late Tuesday, hours after a grand jury indicted him on six counts of murder, stalking and firearms violations. The murder charges could carry the federal death penalty.

At a news conference Tuesday, prosecutors released a rambling handwritten letter they say Boelter wrote to FBI Director Kash Patel in which he confessed to the June 14 shootings of Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark. However, the letter doesn’t make clear why he targeted the couples.

Boelter’s federal defender, Manny Atwal, said in an email that the weighty charges do not come as a surprise.

“The indictment starts the process of receiving discovery which will allow me to evaluate the case,” Atwal said Tuesday. She did not immediately comment Wednesday on any possible defense strategies.

At his last court appearance, Boelter said he was “looking forward to the facts about the 14th coming out.”

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While the scheduling order set a trial date of Nov. 3, Atwal said it was “very unlikely” to happen so soon.

Investigators have already gathered a huge amount of evidence that both sides will need time to evaluate. The scheduling order acknowledges that both sides may find grounds for seeking extensions. And the potential for a death sentence adds yet another level of complexity.

The acting U.S. attorney for Minnesota, Joe Thompson, reiterated Tuesday that they consider the former House speaker’s death a “political assassination” and the wounding of Sen. John Hoffman an “attempted assassination.”

But Thompson told reporters a decision on whether to seek the death penalty “will not come for several months.” He said it will ultimately be up to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, with input from the capital case unit at the Department of Justice, local prosecutors and the victims.

Minnesota abolished its state death penalty in 1911, but the Trump administration says it intends to be aggressive in seeking capital punishment for eligible federal crimes.

Boelter’s motivations remain murky. Friends have described him as an evangelical Christian with politically conservative views who had been struggling to find work. Boelter allegedly made lists of politicians in Minnesota and other states — all or mostly Democrats — and attorneys at national law firms. In an interview published by the New York Post on Saturday, Boelter insisted the shootings had nothing to do with his opposition to abortion or his support for President Donald Trump, but he declined to elaborate on that point.

“There is little evidence showing why he turned to political violence and extremism,” Thompson said.

Prosecutors say Boelter was disguised as a police officer and driving a fake squad car early June 14 when he went to the Hoffmans’ home in the Minneapolis suburb of Champlin. He allegedly shot the senator nine times, and his wife, Yvette, eight times, but they survived.

Boelter later allegedly went to the Hortmans’ home in nearby Brooklyn Park and killed both of them. Their dog was so gravely injured that he had to be euthanized.

Investigators found Boelter’s letter to the FBI director in the car he abandoned near his rural home in Green Isle, west of Minneapolis. He surrendered the night after the shootings following what authorities have called the largest search for a suspect in Minnesota history.