Ex-Wife of Man Who Attacked Paul Pelosi Is Barred From Court as Jury Deliberates

Updated 5:50 p.m. Tuesday

The state charges against David DePape, who is on trial for a second time for breaking into the home of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and attacking her husband, are now in the hands of 12 jurors.

But before the defense could give its closing arguments on Tuesday, Judge Harry Dorfman barred Gypsy Taub, DePape’s ex-wife, from attending the proceedings or even being on the second floor of the San Francisco courthouse where lawyers, reporters and the jury gathered outside the courtroom.

“It’s rare that I order someone excluded from the courtroom,” Dorfman said. “The line for me is when a member of the public attempts to influence a member of the jury.”

Prior to Dorfman’s order, graffiti was found in the women’s bathroom nearest the courtroom, which contained a website address DePape’s family set up last year, proclaiming his innocence. On Monday, Taub handed out printed pieces of paper with the link to the website, as well as her phone number and email address. She even told reporters she was running the site to cast doubt on the state’s evidence in the case.

Starting at noon Tuesday, the jury began deliberating DePape’s fate on five charges: burglary, felony false imprisonment of an elder, threatening a public official, kidnapping and intimidating a witness. Dorfman dismissed three other charges — attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon and elder abuse — after the defense successfully argued DePape had already been tried for those crimes in federal court, where he was convicted and sentenced last month to 30 years in prison.

In their closing arguments, both the prosecution and defense painted DePape, 44, as someone who went too far down the rabbit hole of YouTube conspiracy theories, leaving him to believe the government to be corrupt and that Hollywood was tied up in a large pedophile ring. Taub, who has also embraced conspiracy theories, heavily influenced his actions and “inflicted immeasurable harm to his mental state,” DePape’s defense had argued in federal court.

Led by his belief in those theories, DePape went to the Pelosis’ San Francisco home after 2 a.m. on Oct. 28, 2022, in search of the House speaker. He used a hammer to smash in the downstairs patio door and his 6-foot-4, 300-pound body to push open a heavy wood door, bursting through the doors of the couple’s third-floor bedroom where only Paul Pelosi was asleep, according to court testimony.

“Where’s Nancy?” Paul Pelosi testified that DePape said.

Prosecutors again played the 911 call Paul Pelosi made over the speaker phone in their bedroom bathroom, with Assistant District Attorney Phoebe Maffei telling the jury it would make more sense now that they had all the details of those early morning hours.

“My name is David,” DePape said on the call.

“Who is David?” the 911 operator said.

“I don’t know,” Paul Pelosi said. “He says he’s a friend, but he’s not.”

Prosecutors repeatedly played body camera video from two Capitol Police officers who responded to the home following Paul Pelosi’s call to 911 to find him and DePape standing next to each other, trying to gain control of a claw hammer in DePape’s hands.

“Drop the hammer,” one officer said.

“Nope,” DePape replied before striking Pelosi multiple times.

Jurors heard from investigators and received transcripts of DePape’s testimony from his federal trial, where a jury found him guilty in November.

Maffei said DePape spent months planning a “rampage” with a list of targets and showed up to the Pelosi home “prepared for a lengthy standoff.” DePape wanted to confront Pelosi and interrogate her about “Russiagate,” an online conspiracy theory regarding the investigation into Russian interference in U.S. elections.

DePape brought a sledgehammer to then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s home with one purpose, Maffei said: “He wanted to break her kneecaps, so she would be wheeled onto the floor of Congress. So people would know there are consequences.”

DePape also had two GoPro cameras with him, “so his hands could be free while he maimed her and filmed her,” which he could then post online, acting as fodder for people like him researching conspiracy theories, Maffei said.

In his closing, San Francisco Public Defender Adam Lipson told the jury that DePape was guilty of a few of the charges, including first-degree residential burglary and dissuading a witness, and guilty of at least attempting to falsely imprison Paul Pelosi.

At issue, at least to the defense, was the charge of threatening the family of a public official. Lipson argued that the threats DePape issued to Paul Pelosi — like saying he couldn’t stop him from going onto his next targets — had nothing to do with his wife’s position in government.

“It had nothing to do with Nancy Pelosi or her official duties,” Lipson said. “They don’t have the intent in this case.”

Lipson also argued that DePape wasn’t holding Paul Pelosi hostage to get something from his wife, claiming the video he wanted to make of Pelosi confessing to lies he said she had told about Russiagate wasn’t a thing of value.

In her rebuttal, Maffei said there was great value to someone who said he was “impassioned about the lies coming out of Washington, D.C.” in getting the speaker of the House to admit to crimes in her own home.

“This plan all along had been to get to Nancy Pelosi,” Maffei said. “He fully expected to be knocking out her kneecaps to get the confession he wanted. That makes clear the value of the video he wanted to make.”

Maffei said the evidence presented at trial showed DePape’s plan wasn’t a good one, but it was a “thoroughly thought-through plan” that included targeting Pelosi, actor Tom Hanks, former Vice President Mike Pence, a professor in San Francisco and even Taub, his ex-wife.

On Monday, Taub told KQED that she and DePape had been divorced for nine years, and DePape had been living in friend’s garages while working odd jobs.

Before being banned from the second floor of the Hall of Justice, Taub — who is known around the Bay Area for her nudist protests at City Hall — danced in the courthouse hallway, twirling in circles with headphones in her ears.