Cesar Sayoc, who mailed explosive devices to Trump’s critics, sentenced to 20 years in prison

Cesar Sayoc, a fanatical supporter of President Trump who last year mailed explosive devices to prominent Democrats and media figures, was sentenced Monday to 20 years in prison after a judge concluded that Sayoc hated his victims but had not meant to kill them.

Prosecutors had sought a life sentence for the 57-year-old former pizza deliveryman and strip club worker whose “campaign of terror,” they said, coincided with the run-up to the 2018 midterm elections. In all, he mailed 16 inoperative pipe bombs targeting, among others, former president Barack Obama, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and the New York offices of CNN, acting out his paranoid delusions and intense adoration for Trump.

“I am beyond so very sorry for what I did,” Sayoc told U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff. “Now that I am a sober man, I know that I was a sick man. I should have listened to my mother, the love of my life.”

View the complete August 5 article by Philip Bump and Devlin Barrett on The Washington Post website here.