Suspect pleads guilty in firebombing of Pennsylvania governor’s mansion

The man accused of throwing a firebomb at the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion this year accepted a plea deal Tuesday that would send him to prison for 25 to 50 years.

The suspect — Cody A. Balmer, 38, of Harrisburg, Pa. — pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated arson and other charges at the Dauphin County Courthouse, not far from where the attack took place on the first night of Passover, a major Jewish holiday. Gov. Josh Shapiro, who is Jewish, had celebrated the holiday with dozens of friends and relatives at the residence hours before the fire broke out.

No one was injured in the arson, which severely damaged two rooms in the residence and forced Mr. Shapiro, his wife and their four children to evacuate the building.

As part of the plea agreement, Mr. Balmer agreed to pay $100,000 in restitution.

Mr. Balmer, dressed in a brown prison jumpsuit with his hands and feet shackled, reviewed the deal with his lawyer and Dauphin County Prosecutor Francis Chardo, who showed surveillance footage of the crime. He then pleaded.

According to prosecutors, Mr. Balmer scaled a seven-foot fence surrounding the official residence, smashed two windows with a hammer and threw Molotov cocktails he had made from beer bottles.

Surveillance video shows him breaking a window and throwing a Molotov cocktail inside, with an explosion of flames illuminating that area of ​​the residence. Another shows Mr. Balmer breaking a second window and entering the residence before fleeing. A third video shows Mr. Balmer trying to use a short-handled sledgehammer to open doors leading to the family’s quarters. He also tried to kick the doors open.

Mr. Balmer had admitted to state police that he would have attacked Mr. Shapiro with the hammer if he had encountered him that night. A victim impact statement from Mr. Shapiro and his wife, Lori, was read in court by Mr. Chardo. The statement said the Shapiros knew they could be victims of extremists, but “felt protected by the presence of state police in their lives,” including at the official residence.

The attack had left them “feeling exposed”.

“Once this happened in the governor’s residence, we felt unsafe everywhere,” the statement continued.

In the six months since the attack, the state has made security improvements at the governor’s mansion, located along the Susquehanna River, including increasing the height of the perimeter fence. But the results of a security investigation conducted at the governor’s residence have not been made public, fearing they could reveal sensitive information.

This attack is part of a recent series of high-profile attacks in the United States, many of them politically motivated, dating back at least to the attack on President Trump in western Pennsylvania in July 2024.

Since then, a healthcare executive has been shot to death on a Manhattan street; two employees of the Israeli embassy in Washington were shot and killed; a gunman in Minnesota killed a lawmaker and her husband in their home and wounded another and his wife in theirs; a man who blamed football for his brain injuries fatally shot four people in the building that houses the NFL’s New York offices; and last month, right-wing activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed while speaking at a Utah university.

“It’s important that none of us become desensitized to this or accept this as business as usual as political leaders,” Mr. Shapiro said at a news conference later Tuesday. He explained, with his wife by his side, how the attack had shaken his family and how the repairs underway at the governor’s residence recall the fear they experienced.

Mr. Shapiro praised the firefighters and police who responded that night, as well as Mr. Chardo’s work in securing the plea deal, calling Mr. Balmer’s conviction fair.

Mr. Balmer, who has a long history of mental illness, claimed responsibility for the attack almost immediately after it occurred, telling a 911 operator that he was angry at Mr. Shapiro’s position on the war in Gaza, which Mr. Balmer said had led to the deaths of Palestinians.

Mr Balmer’s social media posts suggest he has no particular ideology but rather a deep cynicism. In some articles, he expressed a libertarian leaning that bordered on anarchism; in others he praised violence. His Facebook posts included rants about women, the pharmaceutical industry and the government.

Mr. Balmer did not apologize or address the court except to answer questions from Judge Deborah Curcillo about whether he understood the terms of the agreement. His court-appointed attorney, Bryan Walk, said his client hopes to receive treatment for mental illness in prison.

In a statement to the court, read by a deputy public defender, Mr. Balmer’s parents apologized to Mr. Shapiro and his wife, blaming their son’s manic depression for the attack. He had deteriorated after stopping his treatment, they said, which they assumed he did because he felt better and no longer needed it. They said he was more than what he appeared to be today: a “loving father” who was involved in his children’s lives.

To their son, the statement read: “Cody, this has affected us all deeply. We felt pain and confusion when you lost your way.”