SAN DIEGO (AP) — A 22-year-old man was sentenced Tuesday to life in federal prison for killing a woman and injuring three others when he burst into a Southern California synagogue in 2019, adding to a life sentence he received three months earlier in state court.
John T. Earnest declined to speak in a courtroom full of victims, families and congregants. In state court, his attorney said he wanted to speak but a judge refused, saying he didn’t want to give a platform for Earnest’s hate-filled speech.
Earnest’s attorney, Ellis Johnston III, said his client acknowledged his actions were “inappropriate,” a statement that was greeted with skepticism by prosecutors. Peter Ko, a federal prosecutor, said Earnest’s expression of regret came shortly after the shooting in a phone call to someone else.
U.S. District Judge Anthony Battaglia said the federal and state life sentences would run one after the other instead of concurrently, acknowledging it was symbolic but that it was meant to send a strong message. The judge denied a defense attorney’s request to have Earnest stay in state prison.
“Obviously this is as serious as it gets,” Battaglia said toward the end of a two-hour hearing during which Earnest, who was restrained, looked straight ahead without expression.
Earnest pleaded guilty to federal charges in September after the Justice Department said it wouldn’t seek the death penalty. Defense attorneys and prosecutors recommended a life sentence, plus 30 years.
That same month, Earnest received another life term under a plea agreement with state charges that spared him the death penalty. His conviction for murder and attempted murder at the synagogue and arson for an earlier fire at a nearby mosque brought a life sentence without parole, plus 137 years in prison.
Minutes after the shooting on the last day of Passover, Earnest called a 911 dispatcher to say he shot up the synagogue to save white people.
“I’m defending our nation against the Jewish people, who are trying to destroy all white people,” he said.
The San Diego man was inspired by mass shootings at the Tree of Life Congregation in Pittsburgh and two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, shortly before he attacked Chabad of Poway, a synagogue near San Diego, on April 27, 2019. He frequented 8chan, a dark corner of the internet for those disaffected by mainstream social media sites, to post extremist, racist and violent views.
Earnest legally bought a semi-automatic rifle in San Diego a day before the attack, according to a federal affidavit. He entered the synagogue with 10 bullets loaded and 50 more on his vest but fled after struggling to reload. Worshippers chased him to his car.
Earnest killed 60-year-old Lori Gilbert-Kaye, who was hit twice in the foyer, and wounded an 8-year-old girl, her uncle and Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, who was leading a service on the major Jewish holiday.
Gilbert-Kaye’s husband, daughter, two sisters and others spoke about how the victims brightened their lives and called Earnest a coward, an evil animal and a monster.
Earnest’s parents issued a statement after the shooting expressing shock and sadness, calling their son’s actions a “terrifying mystery.” Their son was an accomplished student, athlete and musician who was studying to be a nurse at California State University, San Marcos.
“To our great shame, he is now part of the history of evil that has been perpetrated on Jewish people for centuries,” they said.
Earnest was indicted by a federal grand jury in May of 2019 on civil rights, hate crime, and firearm charges in connection with the murder of Lori Gilbert Kaye and the attempted murder of 53 others at the Chabad of Poway on April 27, and the March 24 arson of the Dar-ul-Arqam Mosque in Escondido.