WASHINGTON — A federal magistrate judge on Monday apologized over detention conditions to the man charged with attempting to assassinate President Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.
“I am very troubled by what they indicate the conditions that you have been subjected to,” Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui told Cole Allen during a hearing. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It sounds like things have not been the way they’re supposed to.”
Faruqui said he was concerned Allen's treatment behind bars could lead the defendant to believe he was not getting a fair proceeding.
“My concern remains if this is what's happening in this case, what’s happening in every other case," he said.
The judge moved forward with the hearing on Allen's conditions of confinement even though his own attorneys had said it wasn't necessary. Allen appeared in court wearing an orange jumpsuit. He scanned the room when he entered and occasionally nodded along during the proceedings.
He has not entered a plea, but is expected back in court Monday for a preliminary hearing.
After his arrest on April 25, Allen told the FBI that he didn’t expect to survive the incident, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Jocelyn Ballantine.
“It’s clear he did not expect to survive it, which gives rise to potential concern for suicide,” Ballantine said.
He was placed on suicide precautions in a D.C. jail, but his federal public defenders said those restrictions were later lifted. One of his attorneys, Eugene Ohm, said Allen remained in a padded cell, in 24-hour lockdown with constant lighting.
Judge Faruqui noted that this was not the first time the D.C. jail had handled defendants in cases of political violence, and suggested that other inmates charged with violent crimes had been treated better.
“You house people who have been found guilty of killing people,” the judge said to Tony Towns, the acting general counsel for the D.C. Department of Corrections. “How can those people have less restrictive conditions than he does?”
Federal prosecutors said last week that Allen "would have brought about one of the darkest days in American history" had he succeeded in his plan to target Trump administration officials and anyone who got in his way.
Allen, a 31-year-old teacher and engineer from California, was charged last week with attempting to assassinate the president, which carries a sentence of up to life in prison. Allen conceded to detention ahead of a detention hearing last week, and federal prosecutors released additional video from the scene which shows the man identified as Allen charging through a magnetometer and raising his weapon at an officer, who shot at but did not strike Allen.
U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said on CNN over the weekend that an officer from the Secret Service had a "pellet that came from the buckshot" from Allen's shotgun embedded in his bulletproof vest.
The judge ordered more information on his detention by Tuesday.
Three years ago, Faruqui apologized to a Jan. 6 defendant who showed up to the home of former President Barack Obama in a van containing weapons, telling Taylor Taranto that “we as a country have failed you.”
Faruqui referred to the defendant's service in the military and the post-traumatic stress disorder he has suffered. “At every turn, it seems, you get let down, and that’s not fair, he said.”
