California Man Gets Life Sentence For Fatal Synagogue Attack

 John T.

Earnest, 22, (pictured in April 2019) was sentence to life without parole in a California court today 
A 22-year-old former nursing student was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole Thursday for bursting into a Southern California synagogue on the last day of Passover in 2019 with a semiautomatic rifle, killing one worshipper and wounding three others.
John T.
Earnest, who was spared the death penalty, pleaded guilty to 113 hate crimes September 17, one count for each person who was in the synagogue that day.
He killed one and injured three others at the Chabad of Poway, a synagogue near San Diego, on April 27, 2019.

He will serve life without the possibility of parole.
Victims and families were given their first opportunity to address the killer directly during victim-impact statements in San Diego Superior Court Thursday.
The 22-year-old did not make a statement at the sentencing.  
Earnest's attorney said he wanted to speak but Judge Peter Deddeh refused, saying he did not want the hearing to become 'a political forum' for white supremacist views.
'I'm not going to let him use this as a platform to add to his celebrity,' the judge said. 
There was no visible reaction from Earnest, who stared straight ahead. 
He pleaded to 113 counts of hate crimes, one for every person in the Chabad of Poway synagogue near San Diego.

Earnest shot and kill one victim and injured three others in April 27, 2019. He heard victim impact statements at the sentencing, but he didn't speak, as the judge denied his request for a statement. (pictured at his arraignment in April 2019)
Minutes after the shooting in 2019, Earnest called a 911 dispatcher to say he shot up the synagogue to save white people.
'I'm defending our nation against the Jewish people, who are trying to destroy all white people,' he said.
Earnest, who was 19 at the time, legally bought a semi-automatic rifle in San Diego a day before the attack, according to a federal affidavit, and said he admired the gunman who killed dozens of worshippers at two New Zealand mosques. 
He also frequented 8chan, a dark corner of the internet, for those disaffected by mainstream social media sites to post extremist, racist and violent views. 
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The California synagogue where Earnest fired 10 rounds in April 2019 
He entered the synagogue with 10 bullets loaded and 50 more on his vest but fled after struggling to reload.
Lori Gilbert, 60, who was fatally hit twice as she prayed in the foyer.

An eight-year-old girl, her uncle, and Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, who was leading a service on the major Jewish holiday, were hurt.
Gilbert's daughter, Hannah, attended court today and gave a victim impact statement. 
She said she hoped her statement visualized 'what white supremacist, bigoted, racist violence looks, smells, sounds, feels and, yes, even tastes like in America in the 21st century - two years ago and now.' 
'The voice of my mother is reclaimed within my own,' she said in court.

'John Earnest, your bullets will not wreck through my body today as they did my mother's. She is here. She is alive within my words...You are unable to destroy the truth of my experience as much as you may want to.' 
 Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein (pictured with Gilbert's photo), who was shot in the hand by Earnest, was at the funeral of Lori Gilbert, the lone death in Earnest's shooting.

The 60-year-old's family spoke in court Thursday and called her 'the center of her community'
'Lori was the center of her family, the center of her community,' Gilbert's sister Randi Grossman said. 
Other victims who spoke wished Earnest a lonely existence in his prison cell.  
The Earnest family issued a statement after the shooting expressing shock and sadness, calling their son's actions a 'terrifying mystery.' 
Their son was an accomplished student, athlete and musician who was studying to be a nurse at California State University, www.cruisewhat.com San Marcos.
'[Our] sadness pales in comparison to the grief and anguish our son has caused for so many innocent people,' they wrote.

'To our great shame, he is now part of the history of evil that has been perpetrated on Jewish people for centuries.
'Our son's actions were informed by people we do not know, and ideas we do not hold,' the family said. 'Like our five other children, he was raised in a family, a faith, and a community that all rejected hate and taught that love must be the motive for everything we do.'
Earnest also faces sentencing in federal court on December 28. 
He pleaded guilty to federal charges after the Justice Department said it wouldn't seek the death penalty.

Defense attorneys and prosecutors are recommending a life sentence.

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