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U.S.|Suspect Pleads Guilty in Firebombing of Pa. Governor’s Residence
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/14/us/arson-harrisburg-cody-balmer-josh-shapiro.html
Under a plea agreement, Cory Balmer will be imprisoned for 25 to 50 years for attempted murder and other charges in the attack on Gov. Josh Shapiro’s official residence in Harrisburg, Pa.
By Billy Witz and David DeKok
David DeKok reported from Harrisburg, Pa.
Oct. 14, 2025Updated 10:40 a.m. ET
The man accused of firebombing the governor of Pennsylvania’s residence earlier this year agreed to a plea deal Tuesday that would send him to prison for 25 to 50 years.
The suspect — Cody A. Balmer, 38, of Harrisburg, Pa. — entered a guilty plea on charges of attempted murder, terrorism and aggravated arson 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 a few hours before the fire broke out.
No one was injured in the arson attack, which severely damaged two rooms at the residence and forced Mr. Shapiro, his wife and their four children to evacuate from the building.
As part of the plea agreement, Mr. Balmer agreed to pay $100,000 in restitution.
Victim impact statements from Mr. Shapiro and his wife, Lori, were read to the court, as were statements from Mr. Balmer’s parents, who apologized for his actions and said they stemmed from his having stopped medication that he had been prescribed for schizophrenia.
Mr. Balmer, who has a lengthy history of mental illness, claimed responsibility for the attack almost immediately after it happened, telling a 911 operator that he was angry about Mr. Shapiro’s stance on the war in Gaza, which he said had led to the deaths of Palestinians.
The state police said Mr. Balmer climbed over a fence around the grounds of the official residence, broke two windows with a hammer and threw in Molotov cocktails he made from beer bottles.
The attack was one in a recent series of high-profile politically motivated attacks in the United States, dating back at least to the attempt on President Trump’s life in western Pennsylvania in July 2024.
Since then, a health care executive was shot to death on a Manhattan street; two employees of the Israeli embassy in Washington were shot and killed; a gunman in Minnesota killed one legislator and her husband in their home and wounded another and his wife in theirs; a man who blamed football for his brain injuries shot and killed four people at the building that houses the N.F.L.’s offices in New York; and last month, the right-wing activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed while speaking at a college in Utah.
Mr. Balmer appeared to be a troubled man at the time of the Harrisburg attack. A man who answered the phone at Mr. Balmer’s residence in April said that Mr. Balmer “wouldn’t take his medicine,” and Mr. Balmer’s mother said in interviews that her son was mentally ill. He was once involuntarily committed to a mental health facility after attacking his ex-wife and her two children.
Mr. Balmer’s social media posts suggested that he did not have any particular ideology so much as a deep cynicism. In some posts, he expressed a libertarian bent that bordered on anarchism; in others he praised violence. His Facebook posts included rants about women, the pharmaceutical industry and the government.
