Evacuate everyone 'except for Trump.' Mom admits bomb threat at his West Palm golf course

Evacuate everyone ‘except for Trump.’ Mom admits bomb threat at his West Palm golf course

Posted by Admin September 16, 2024 Golf

A part-time manicurist from Boca Raton left a voicemail in June saying she planted a bomb on Trump’s West Palm Beach golf course.

WEST PALM BEACH — Days before a man hid in the bushes at Trump International Golf Club and aimed a rifle toward the former president, a 60-year-old woman from Boca Raton told a judge she threatened to detonate a bomb there three months earlier.

“There is a bomb I left on the site,” the woman said in a June 6 voicemail to Donald Trump’s golf course near West Palm Beach. “Hopefully you will get everyone evacuated, except for Trump.”

Members of the U.S. Secret Service traced the call within hours to Martha Jane Schoenfeld, a part-time manicurist and mother of two adult children. Arrested shortly afterward, Schoenfeld made her first appearance in federal court on July 12 — one day before the first failed assassination attempt on Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania.

She pleaded guilty on Sept. 4, a week and a half before the second.

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Schoenfeld maintains she had neither the means nor the motive to carry out the threat. Though she faces up to 10 years in prison, federal prosecutors have indicated they will recommend one year of probation instead.

Schoenfeld’s age and choice of venue are the only apparent similarities between her and Ryan Wesley Routh, the 58-year-old man who authorities say aimed a semi-automatic rifle through a fence while the Republican nominee golfed Sunday. Schoenfeld’s arrest was her first. Routh’s was not.

Public records indicate his criminal history dates back to at least 2002 and includes an armed standoff with police in Guilford County, North Carolina, west of Raleigh. Unlike Schoenfeld, who investigators found unarmed in the home she shares with her longtime husband, Routh is accused of bringing a rifle with a scope and a scratched-off serial number with him to the golf course.

He appeared in federal court in West Palm Beach at 10:30 a.m. Monday. A federal public defender represented him at the hearing, where he was charged with two firearms-related felonies.

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Though Routh was within sight of Trump and Schoenfeld was not, only the latter of the two was charged with threatening a public official.

According to investigators, Schoenfeld initially denied knowing about the bomb threat when confronted at her home by a secret service agent and a Boca Raton police officer. She reversed course when told that investigators could trace where the call came from.

Investigators learned of a second bomb threat to the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, left by a caller with the same number as the first, shortly after departing from Schoenfeld’s home. The secret service agent called Schoenfeld, who again denied knowing about the threat before admitting that she had made it.

She added that she left a threatening voicemail with U.S. Sen Marco Rubio of Florida around the same time. Initially charged with two threats-related misdemeanors for the Nevada and Florida bomb threats, prosecutors agreed to drop one charge in exchange for her guilty plea this month.

District Judge Raag Singhal is scheduled to sentence her on Dec. 3.

With the presidential election fewer than 100 days away, Schoenfeld and Routh join a growing list of people accused of threatening public officials. Jupiter police arrested a man in July who called on social media for the murders of Trump, his running mate JD Vance and their families.

Hannah Phillips covers criminal justice at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at hphillips@pbpost.com. Help support our journalism and subscribe today.