DOJ alleges two people sold rifle to alleged would-be Trump assassin Ryan Routh

The Justice Department says two people sold a rifle to Ryan Routh a few weeks before his alleged attempted assassination of President Trump in September 2024.

The two people, Tina Brown Cooper and Ronnie Jay Oxendine, have pleaded guilty to gun-related charges in federal court after their indictments in March and arrests in April, CBS News reported. 

Cooper on Monday pleaded guilty to firearm trafficking, and Oxendine pleaded guilty last month to possessing an unregistered firearm after police found a short-barreled shotgun in his storage building.

According to court filings regarding the plea agreements, Cooper allegedly "agreed and conspired with" Oxendine and Routh "to sell and dispose of a firearm to a prohibited person (Routh)." Routh was not allowed to own a firearm due to a prior 2002 weapons conviction.

At the time of the sale of the firearm, which Oxendine allegedly sold to Routh at Cooper's request, Cooper was Oxendine's employee at his roofing company in Greensboro, North Carolina.

The DOJ said that Cooper, who allegedly acted as a middleman in the sale, and Oxendine sold Routh a Chinese-made SKS rifle in August. Cooper, Routh, and Oxendine allegedly met at Oxendine's roofing company's headquarters, where Routh paid Oxendine $350 cash for the rifle and $100 to Cooper for helping to arrange the sale.

Routh was allegedly found with an SKS-style rifle outside Trump's golf club in West Palm Beach about six weeks later when he allegedly tried to assassinate Trump, but federal prosecutors did not specify if it was the same gun that Oxendine and Cooper had allegedly sold him. Neither Cooper nor Oxendine told law enforcement they had any advance knowledge of Routh's alleged plans. 

Cooper allegedly told the FBI that Routh asked for help to buy a gun "for his son to use as protection," explaining that he couldn't buy a gun in his real name because of his criminal conviction. She said she was a former employee of Routh at his roofing company in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Routh has been charged with attempted assassination, possessing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence, assaulting a federal officer, obliteration of a firearm’s serial number, and possessing a firearm while being a convicted felon. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges, and is set to go to trial in September. Routh also moved to fire his public defenders on Tuesday.