Judge accepts insanity plea from man who attacked Virginia congressman’s office with bat

FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va. (AP) — A northern Virginia man who attacked staffers in the district office of U.S. Rep. Gerry Connolly with a baseball bat was found not guilty by reason of insanity Monday.

A Fairfax County judge accepted the insanity plea from Xuan-Kha Tran Pham, 50, of Fairfax on charges that included malicious wounding and assault.

Pham was arrested and charged in May 2023 after the attack. Two staffers were injured, including an intern who was working her first day. The intern was struck in the ribs, and the other staffer was struck on the head repeatedly.

Connolly, a Democrat who represents parts of northern Virginia, has said Pham came there intending to kill him.

Pham’s defense attorney, public defender Dawn Butorac, told WRC-TV that Pham has had serious mental illness for decades and was not properly medicated at the time of the attack.

“Unfortunately, he’s suffered from delusions about government conspiracies and a variety of other things and he’d gone to a variety of government agencies in an attempt to get help because he believed the government was imprisoning him and all sorts of other things,” Butorac said.

Pham will now be sent to a psychiatric hospital for treatment.

In a written statement, Connolly said he hopes Pham gets the treatment he needs “so that he does not harm anyone else or himself.” He said the attack shows the consequences of incendiary political rhetoric that is “too frequently expressed by too many people.”

“Hate speech and calls to violence are never acceptable and must always be condemned,” he wrote. “Failure to be civil and show respect for our differences will only result in more incidents like we experienced in May 2023.”

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