A 26-year-old man has pleaded guilty to two federal charges for attacking Vice President JD Vance’s Cincinnati home.
William DeFoor entered his plea after Secret Service agents caught him near Vance’s residence on January 5 around midnight. According to a report, agents first spotted DeFoor running along the front fence of the property. He crossed the property line, then used a hammer to try to smash the driver’s side window of an unmarked government police vehicle parked at the driveway entrance.
Agents ordered him to stop and drop the hammer. He refused. DeFoor proceeded to shatter 14 glass panels across three large historic windows on the front of the home. He also damaged government security equipment attached to each window during the attack.
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DeFoor pleaded guilty to two counts. The first is acts of physical violence against a person or property in a restricted building or grounds. The second is willful injury or depredation of United States property. Each count carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, putting him on the hook for up to 20 years behind bars.
As part of his plea deal, DeFoor must pay $28,000 in restitution for the damage. He is also banned from coming within 350 yards of Vance, his family members, or any of their homes. Any contact with the vice president or his family, direct or otherwise, is also prohibited.
Federal prosecutors agreed to drop a third charge, assaulting or impeding federal officers, following sentencing. DeFoor’s attorney, Paul Laufman, commented on that decision. “The third count was more serious arguably in that it asserted a physical resistance, but I don’t think the facts ever bore that out,” Laufman said.
Laufman has maintained throughout the case that his client’s actions were not politically driven. He pointed instead to mental health struggles. “I don’t know that it was or wasn’t politically motivated. Mr. DeFoor suffers from mental health issues. I don’t know that he clearly 100% knew where he was or what he was doing that night,” the attorney said.
Federal prosecutors had previously argued that DeFoor deliberately chose Vance’s home as his target. They stopped short of declaring the attack politically motivated.
DeFoor’s legal history adds significant context. At the time of the attack, he was already in court-ordered mental health treatment connected to a separate vandalism case. In 2023, he faced criminal trespass charges but was ruled incompetent to stand trial. The following year, he was charged with two counts of vandalism for breaking business windows and was again found incompetent. A court then ordered him into treatment at Summit Behavioral Healthcare.
Sentencing is pending a pre-sentence investigation report. Laufman expects that process to take several months.
