A 26-year-old Ohio man has pleaded guilty to vandalizing the Cincinnati home of Vice President JD Vance with a hammer earlier this year.
William D. DeFoor of Cincinnati admitted in federal court to committing acts of physical violence against government officials or property and causing willful injury or damage to U.S. property. A federal grand jury indicted him in January.
“Acts of violence directed against our political leaders, their families or property have no place in our society and will not be tolerated,” Dominick Gerace II, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, said in a news release announcing the plea.
The incident happened around midnight on Jan. 5, 2026, when U.S. Secret Service agents saw DeFoor running along the front
fence of the Vice President’s protected residence, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. Vance and his family were not home at the time, having recently returned to Washington, D.C., after a weekend visit to Cincinnati.
DeFoor crossed the property line at the driveway, where an unmarked federal law enforcement vehicle blocked access, and tried to break the driver’s side window several times with a hammer, the attorney’s office said.
DeFoor ignored verbal commands to stop and drop the hammer and instead began smashing the panels of large historic glass windows at the front of the house. The strikes also damaged about $28,000 worth of federally owned enhanced security hardware on the windows, the attorney’s office said.
DeFoor eventually dropped the hammer and tried to escape on foot but was caught and detained by Secret Service agents and Cincinnati police officers, the office said.
“Our elected leaders, at all levels of government, must be permitted to carry out their duties free from threats, vandalism, and other forms of violence,” Gerace said. “Perpetrators like DeFoor, who put that freedom at risk, particularly through violent, destructive actions, will, like here, be vigorously prosecuted.”
The charges are federal crimes punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
In January, Paul Laufman, DeFoor’s attorney, said the crime was not politically motivated.
“This is purely a mental health issue,” he told the Cincinnati Enquirer, part of the USA Today Network.
In a statement read to reporters outside the U.S. Courthouse in Cincinnati, DeFoor’s mother Catherine described William DeFoor as a straight-A student who was awarded a full scholarship to study music but was ultimately overcome by psychological struggles.
"Mental illness is a terrible thing," she said.
Court records show DeFoor was involved in three mental health court cases in 2024. The court twice determined he had a mental illness and in one case ordered him to undergo forced medication treatment.
Vance's official residence while in office is the Vice President's mansion at the United States Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., about 2.5 miles away from the White House.
A former Ohio senator, Vance bought a home in Cincinnati's East Walnut Hills neighborhood for $1.4 million in 2018, the Enquirer reported.
Contributing: Melina Khan
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Ohio man pleads guilty to attacking JD Vance's house
