DOJ to seek death penalty for Jewish museum shooting suspect

WASHINGTON (CN) — The Justice Department announced on Friday that it will seek the death penalty for Elias Rodriguez, the Chicago man arrested in connection with the fatal shooting outside the Capital Jewish Museum last year.

Rodriguez, 31, faces 13 counts in a superseding indictment tied to the May 21, 2025, killings of Yaron Lischinsky, 30, an Israeli diplomat, and Sarah Milgrim, 26, a U.S. citizen and Israeli Embassy employee.

In a four-page notice to U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss, prosecutors said they will seek the death penalty if Rodriguez is convicted on one of three charges: murdering a foreign official and two counts of causing death with a firearm.

Rodriguez also faces hate crime and terrorism charges, including two hate crime murder counts and four counts of armed terrorism under D.C. law, for acting with the intent to influence government policy related to Israel and the war in Gaza. The terrorism charges include two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of assault with intent to kill.

U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said in a statement that the decision resulted from an “extensive review of the facts and the law.”

“Let me be clear: anyone who commits acts of political violence in the nation’s capital will face the full force of the law,” Pirro said.

Justice Department attorney Charles Jones laid out a set of factors that warrant the death penalty in the case, citing 18 U.S. Code Section 3591.

The statutory threshold factors include intentional killing, intentionally causing serious bodily injury, intentionally participating in an act resulting in death and intentionally committing a violent act while knowing it created a grave risk of death.

Prosecutor Jones identified five aggravating factors: death during another crime, grave risk to additional people, substantial planning and premeditation, victim vulnerability — saying Milgrim “was particularly vulnerable due to infirmity” — and multiple killings.

The remaining nonstatutory aggravating factors include the impact on the victims’ families, Rodriguez’s bias motive and his intentional selection of the target.

“Rodriguez targeted individuals whose he perceived to have attended an event for young Jewish professionals, organized by the American Jewish Committee and hosted at the Capital Jewish Museum, to amplify the effect of his crimes,” Jones wrote.

According to officials in the indictment, Rodriguez flew from Chicago to Washington on May 20 with a Heckler and Koch VP9 SK 9mm semi-automatic handgun in his luggage.

They say he also wrote a manifesto dated May 20, titled “Explication,” denouncing Israel’s war on the Palestinian people in Gaza as a genocide, describing his actions as “armed demonstration” and calling to “free Palestine.”

“A word about the morality of armed demonstration,” Rodriguez reportedly wrote. “Those of us against the genocide take satisfaction in arguing that the perpetrators and abettors have forfeited their humanity.”

On May 21, Rodriguez bought a ticket to the “Young Diplomats Reception” hosted by the American Jewish Committee at the Capital Jewish Museum and scheduled a social media post titled “Explication” to publish later that evening.

Prosecutors said Rodriguez approached Lischinsky and Milgrim as they exited the museum and fired about 20 shots, killing them.

As police removed Rodriguez from the museum, prosecutors said he shouted “shame on you” and “shame on Zio-Nazi terror” at attendees.

The case is being investigated by the FBI’s Washington Field Office and the Metropolitan Police Department, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for D.C. is receiving assistance from the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice.

Rodriguez’s federal defenders did not respond to a request for comment.

Moss, a Barack Obama appointee, had previously set a May 5 status conference to hear the Justice Department’s decision regarding the penalty, but rescheduled the hearing last week for June 30.

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