Federal prosecutors will not seek the death penalty in the case against a young man who carried out a shooting at the Chabad of Poway that left one dead and three injured.
According to documents filed Monday in San Diego federal court, prosecutors opted against capital punishment after John Timothy Earnest, 22, pleaded guilty last month to murder and other state charges in connection with the April 2019 shooting.
As part of his plea, Earnest, a former Cal State San Marcos student and Rancho Penasquitos resident, admitted that he specifically targeted the victims because of their Jewish faith.
The attack on the synagogue took place on the last day of the Jewish Passover holiday. Fifty-four people were in the building when Earnest opened fire. Surveillance footage from the date of the attack supports the theory that he may have killed far more than one person had his rifle not malfunctioned shortly after he began firing on congregants.
Sixty-year-old Lori Gilbert Kay was fatally wounded in the attack.
Prosecutors alleged that Earnest, then 19, published an anti-semitic open letter to the online message board 8chan shortly before the shooting. It contained references to a variety of racist, anti-semitic conspiracy theories, as well as praise for the men who committed similar hate-motivated shootings on the Al Noor Mosque in New Zealand in 2019 and the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018.
Earnest also pleaded guilty to an arson charge for setting fire to the Dar-ul-Arqam mosque in Escondido in March 2019.
Victims of the shooting and their families have filed a series of civil suits in connection with the attack, against Earnest, the synagogue, the firearms retailer that sold Earnest his weapon and the gun’s manufacturer.
A motions hearing for Earnest’s criminal case is set for Sept. 8. Earnest is expected to be sentenced on Sept. 30.
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