A US judge on Monday apologized to the man accused of attempting to assassinate Donald Trump for the “legally deficient” treatment he has faced in a Washington DC, jail, including being placed on suicide watch, separated from other inmates and denied a Bible.
The US magistrate judge Zia Faruqui said he was disturbed by the conditions for Cole Allen, who allegedly fired a shotgun during a foiled attack on Trump and senior officials in his administration at a 25 April press gala. The judge said the conditions were inappropriate for a person with no criminal history.
“Whatever you’ve been through, I apologize,” Faruqui said during a court hearing.
Faruqui said he has an obligation to make sure the 31-year-old Los Angeles-area man is “treated with the basic decency of a human being”. Allen last week agreed to remain detained in the local jail in Washington after his lawyers said they would not contest arguments from prosecutors that he posed a danger. He has been charged with attempted assassination and firearms offenses. He has not yet entered a plea.
Prosecutor Jocelyn Ballantine said Allen told FBI agents after his arrest at the site of the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner that he did not expect to survive the alleged attack. Allen’s lawyers raised concerns that he was placed on suicide watch despite showing no suicidal tendencies during a health evaluation, housed in a padded cell for 23 hours a day and denied access to a Bible. Allen has since been removed from suicide watch, but remains in restrictive housing, a condition his lawyers said they did not oppose.
“Right now, it’s not working. It’s insufficient. I think it’s legally deficient,” Faruqui said of Allen’s treatment in the jail.
The judge noted that while the allegations against Allen are “extremely serious”, pretrial detention is not supposed to be punitive.
Faruqui compared Allen’s treatment with that of people who took part in the 6 January 2021, attack on the US Capitol, when Trump supporters tried to prevent Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 US presidential election. Faruqui said defendants in those cases were treated more favorably despite engaging in what the judge called comparable conduct.
“I’m fascinated and disturbed,” the judge said. Many Capitol riot defendants, who Trump has since pardoned, also objected to their treatment in the same Washington jail, and were housed in a unit separate from other inmates.
Faruqui ordered a lawyer for the jail to alert him by Tuesday morning when a final decision would be made about the terms of Allen’s confinement.