The perpetrator of a deadly antisemitic attack near San Diego in 2019 was sentenced to life in prison on Thursday, without the possibility of parole.
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John Earnest, 22, a former nursing student, pleaded guilty for the shooting attack on the Chabad Synagogue in Poway.
A 60-year-old member of the congregation, Lori Gilbert-Kaye, was killed and three others were wounded in the attack, including the rabbi, who was shot in the hand and lost an index finger.
Several dozen people were inside the synagogue at that time.
"I'm just trying to defend my nation from the Jewish people," Earnest said, according to court documents.
Earnest also pleaded guilty to setting a mosque on fire in March 2019, an act he described in a racist and anti-Semitic pamphlet posted online hours before the attack on the synagogue.
Earnest faced the death penalty, which, while still in force in California, has been suspended until further notice since 2006.
The attack, on the last day of Passover celebrations, came exactly six months after an attack on a synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 2018 that left 11 people dead.
Earnest was inspired by the massacre, and purchased a semi-automatic rifle the day before the shooting, a federal affidavit said.
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