Cesar Sayoc sentenced to 20 years in prison for mailing pipe bombs to prominent Trump critics

Sayoc, who pleaded guilty to sending more than a dozen pipe bombs to prominent Democrats and CNN last year, was sentenced to 20 years in prison by a judge on Monday.

Judge Rakoff has sentenced Cesar Sayoc to 240 months (20 years) in prison, to be followed by five years of supervised release.

Sayoc: “When I read what I had wrote online & now being sober and what I had did, I can’t believe it, what I said,” he told the court.

“Now that I am a sober man, I know I was a very sick man. I should have listened to my mother, the love of my life. She told me to get help.”

Sayoc defense attorney, during his sentencing: “We believe that the president’s rhetoric contributed to Mr. Sayoc’s actions in this offense.”

In response to this argument, SDNY prosecutor says: “The government would submit that politics cannot justify a terrorist attack.”

Judge Rakoff says he agrees that the argument “is something of a sideshow.”