The Justice of the United States has incorporated this Friday a new charge of terrorism in the case against Cole Thomas Allen, detained for the shooting that took place during the Correspondents’ Dinner at the White House at the end of April, which raises the possible sentence up to life imprisonment.
Allen, who was already prosecuted for attempted murder of the president of the United States, Donald Trump, in addition to three other offenses, now adds an additional terrorism accusation after a modification of the formal indictment. In this way, he is now charged with a total of five offenses, according to what the federal prosecutor for the District of Columbia, Jeanine Pirro, has detailed.
For now, U.S. authorities have not provided any further information about the specific scope of this new charge, as the North American television network ABC News has advanced.
This 31-year-old California professor pleaded not guilty in May to all charges before a federal court based in the U.S. capital. In addition to the attempted assassination attempt of a head of state, he is attributed the offenses of transporting weapons between different states, using a firearm in the commission of a violent crime, and assaulting a Secret Service agent with a deadly weapon.
The defendant faces a life imprisonment sentence if he is ultimately found guilty. According to security forces, he was located heavily armed after the April 25 shooting, an incident that forced the president to be evacuated.
At the time of his arrest, he was carrying a 12-gauge pump-action shotgun, a .38 caliber semi-automatic pistol, and three knives, according to the account of prosecutors, who then requested his admission to pretrial detention.
A sworn statement by an FBI agent details that Allen traveled by train from Los Angeles to Chicago and, subsequently, to Washington between April 21 and 24. Once in the capital, he checked into the Hilton hotel, where the Correspondents’ Dinner was scheduled to take place.