A federal grand jury in Washington on Tuesday returned a four-count indictment against Cole Tomas Allen, the California man accused of opening fire outside the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner last month, formally charging him for the first time with assaulting a federal officer with a deadly weapon in addition to attempting to assassinate President Donald Trump.
The indictment carries forward three counts that the Justice Department filed by criminal complaint on April 27: attempted assassination of the president, transportation of a firearm, and ammunition across state lines with intent to commit a felony and discharging a firearm during a crime of violence.
The new fourth count, assault on a federal officer with a deadly weapon, is the first time the government has formally accused Allen of striking the Secret Service officer who was hit during the encounter, after prosecutors spent days hedging on ballistics.
The indictment identifies the wounded officer only as “V.G.,” the same designation used in the FBI affidavit unsealed last week. The officer, wearing a ballistic vest, was struck once in the chest and was treated and released.
Earlier court filings said Allen fired his pump-action shotgun “in the direction” of the officer, but the government had stopped short of alleging in writing that Allen’s round was the one that hit him. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro told reporters Sunday that the round was “definitively” Allen’s.
Allen, 31, of Torrance, California, has not entered a plea and agreed to remain in pretrial detention. He is being held at the District of Columbia jail, where his treatment has drawn scrutiny from U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui, who apologized to Allen on Monday over conditions of his confinement.
Prosecutors have cast the April 25 attack as premeditated political violence.
According to the Justice Department, Allen booked a room at the Washington Hilton on April 6, traveled by train from Los Angeles through Chicago to Washington, and arrived with a 12-gauge pump-action shotgun and a Rock Island Armory 1911 .38-caliber pistol.
At about 8:40 p.m. on the night of the dinner, prosecutors say, he ran past magnetometers on the terrace level outside the ballroom, fired a shotgun round and was tackled after a Secret Service officer fired five times without striking him.
A manifesto attributed to Allen and excerpted in earlier filings said he intended to target Trump administration officials, and he signed a pre-attack email “Friendly Federal Assassin.”
Allen’s defense has argued in court papers that the writing does not name Trump and that the assassination charge rests on inference. The next hearing is set for May 11.
