The whacked-out Hawaii man who is accused of trying to assassinate Donald Trump at his Florida golf course was locked and loaded, with 10 rounds in the magazine, plus one in the chamber of his Soviet-designed SKS assault rifle, according federal prosecutors — as they revealed the first close-up photo of the weapon.
The rifle that was found in Ryan Wesley Routh’s alleged sniper’s nest just outside Trump International Golf Club West Palm Beach on Sept. 15. Photos were included in a detention memo filed Monday — ahead of a hearing in which the judge ordered the alleged would-be assassin should be locked up without bond until trial.
The FBI revealed the SKS rifle. SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA
Ryan Wesley Routh is accused of attempting to assassinate Donald Trump on his golf course. Martin County Sheriffs OfficeThe rifle has been modified with a detachable magazine, a modern stock and a scope to make it more accurate to shoot at long range.
The serial number on the rifle was “obliterated and unreadable,” prosecutors alleged.
Routh’s fingerprint was also allegedly found on the weapon, the court papers state.
The feds found the firearm — as well as backpacks and a GoPro camera — soon after the 48-year-old suspect fled the hiding spot where he’d allegedly been waiting to take a shot at the former president.
The information came out before a three-hour detention hearing got underway in a federal court in West Palm Beach Monday where prosecutors told a judge they were planning to ask a grand jury to consider mounting the charge of trying to “assassinate a major political candidate” against Routh.
Routh — a Hawaii resident — is currently only facing two counts related to possession of the SKS rifle. He faces up to 15 years behind bars.
The gun — revealed in a memo by the feds Monday — was found stashed in Routh’s alleged sniper’s nest. SDSF/MEGADuring the hearing, prosecutors argued that Routh posed a danger to the community and should be held in jail until trial — an argument that Judge Ryon McCabe agreed with finding the “weight of the evidence against the defendant is strong.”
But Routh’s lawyer, Kristy Militello, asked for him to be allowed to live with his sister in North Carolina, claiming he wasn’t a danger and he had made court appearances in prior cases.
A Secret Service agent foiled the attempted assassination attempt after spotting the muzzle of the rifle sticking through the shrubbery lining the golf course and opening fire, authorities said.
Routh abandoned his weapon and took off in an SUV, but was apprehended some 40 minutes later on Interstate 95 in Martin County, Fla., according to prosecutors.
Authorities who searched his car subsequently found six cellphones, including one that showed a Google search of how to travel from Palm Beach County to Mexico, the court papers charge.
They also found a list with dates in August, September and October – as well as venues where Trump had appeared or was scheduled to appear, prosecutors said.
A notebook found in his car was allegedly filled with criticism of the Russian and Chinese governments and notes about how to join the war on behalf of Ukraine.
Routh has prior convictions including one from 2002 in which he was caught with a bomb in a police standoff and another from 2010 for possession of stolen goods.






