White House Correspondents’ Dinner Shooting Suspect Pleads Not Guilty to All Charges

Cole Allen, arrested for the shooting during the Correspondents’ Dinner at the White House held at the end of April, has denied this Monday all the charges of which he is accused, including that of attempted murder of the president of the United States, Donald Trump.

This 31-year-old Californian professor has pleaded not guilty before a federal court in the US capital, according to the NBC News television network.

In addition to the attempted assassination, Allen has been formally charged with transporting weapons between states and using a firearm during the commission of a violent crime, to which is added a new charge of assaulting a Secret Service agent with a deadly weapon, as announced last week by a federal grand jury in Washington.

Allen, who faces up to life in prison if convicted, was heavily armed when he was found by security forces following the April 25 shooting that forced the president to evacuate.

In particular, the suspect was carrying a 12-gauge pump-action shotgun, a .38-caliber semi-automatic pistol and three knives, according to prosecutors, who then requested his preventive detention.

According to an affidavit from an FBI agent, Allen traveled by train from Los Angeles to Chicago and then to Washington between April 21 and 24 and checked into the Hilton hotel, where the Correspondents’ Dinner was scheduled to take place.