A British man has pleaded guilty to charges that could get him about two years in a US prison and deported for trying to grab a police officer's gun to shoot Donald Trump at a June campaign rally in Las Vegas.
Michael Steven Sandford entered the pleas to being an illegal alien in possession of a firearm and disrupting an official function.
"I tried to take a gun from a policeman to shoot someone with, and I'm pleading guilty," Sandford told the judge.
Sandford could have faced up to 20 years in a US prison if he had been convicted at trial of both charges.
Sandford, 20, was arrested on June 18 after trying to grab the gun in a 1500-seat venue at Treasure Island hotel-casino. Sandford didn't get the gun, and no shots were fired before he was arrested.
Sanford entered his pleas after his mother, Lynne Sandford, and a lawyer arrived from London and met with him in custody last week.
Family lawyer Saimo Chahal said a psychiatrist she enlisted to review the case determined that Sandford was delusional at the time of the attempted attack. Sandford also suffers seizures, obsession-compulsion, anxiety and autism spectrum disorders, Chahal said.
"Michael was not in control at the time of the events and needs help,'' the lawyer said in an email before the plea in US District Court in Las Vegas. "He is desperate to return to the UK to be near his family as he has no ties with the USA."
Court documents say Sandford acknowledged asking the police officer at the event if he could get Trump's autograph then reaching with both hands for the officer's 9mm handgun.
Sandford later told a federal agent that he drove from California to Las Vegas with a plan to kill Trump, and that he rented a 9mm pistol and fired 20 shots at a paper target at a Las Vegas gun range the day before Trump's appearance, according to court documents.
He also said he expected he would be killed during the assassination attempt, but that if he wasn't, he would make another attempt on Trump's life at a rally in Phoenix, court documents state.
As a result of his plea, "It is almost certain that he will be permanently removed ... and will not be able to return to the United States at any time in the future,'' the document said.
