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Federal prosecutors in Washington announced on Friday, November 13, that Cole Tomas Allen, the 31-year-old accused of opening fire at a Secret Service checkpoint during the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner in April, now faces a terrorism charge. A five-count superseding indictment unsealed in U.S. District Court adds one count of act of terrorism while armed, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia.
The new count is based on the alleged attempted first-degree murder of President Donald Trump and is brought under the D.C. Code. It joins four charges already filed against Allen: attempting to assassinate the President, assaulting a federal officer with a deadly weapon, transporting a firearm and ammunition across state lines with intent to commit a felony, and discharging a firearm during a crime of violence. The maximum penalty is life in prison.
Allen, of Torrance, California, has pleaded not guilty to the earlier charges and has not yet entered a plea on the terrorism count, ABC News reported.
Prosecutors say the attack began shortly after 8:30 p.m. on April 25 at the Washington Hilton, where the President was attending the dinner. Allen allegedly ran through a magnetometer at a Secret Service screening point on the hotel's Terrace Level and headed for the stairs leading to the ballroom. He fired a Mossberg Maverick 88 12-gauge pump-action shotgun and struck a Secret Service officer once in the chest. The officer fired five times. Allen fell, was restrained and was arrested with a minor knee injury. The President was not hurt.
Officers recovered the shotgun with one spent cartridge in the barrel, a Rock Island Armory 1911 .38-caliber pistol, and dozens of unspent rounds. Allen also allegedly carried two knives, four daggers, holsters, needle-nose pliers and wire cutters. According to an FBI affidavit cited by FOX 5 DC, he reserved a hotel room on April 6, traveled from California by train and checked in the day before the event. A criminal complaint says Allen wrote that administration officials were his targets, ABC News reported.
The National Security Section of the D.C. U.S. Attorney's Office is prosecuting the case, and the FBI Washington Field Office is leading the investigation. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro, who announced the new count, said the use of violence to register dissent is "anti-democratic at its core."
An indictment is a formal accusation, and Allen is presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.
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