{"id":52245,"date":"2026-01-06T15:38:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T21:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=52245"},"modified":"2026-01-06T21:40:59","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T03:40:59","slug":"attorney-blames-mental-health-issue-for-vandalism-of-jd-vances-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=52245","title":{"rendered":"Attorney blames &#8216;mental health issue&#8217; for vandalism of JD Vance&#8217;s home"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Jan. 6 (UPI) &#8212;&nbsp;The man accused of vandalizing Vice President JD Vance&#8217;s home in Cincinnati has a history of mental health issues, his defense attorney said in court Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">William DeFoor, 26, was arrested and is accused of vandalizing the Vance home at 12:15 a.m. EST on Monday while the vice president and second lady Usha Vance were in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">DeFoor&#8217;s attorney, Paul Laufman, made the<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/us-news\/man-allegedly-broke-windows-jd-vance-home-due-mental-health-issues-not-rcna252559\">\u2002mental health claim<\/a>&nbsp;during his client&#8217;s arraignment hearing in&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.upi.com\/topic\/Hamilton_County\/\">Hamilton County<\/a>&nbsp;Municipal Court on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Laufman said the vandalism was not politically motivated, and Judge Janaya Trotter Bratton ordered DeFoor to post an $11,000 bond to be released from custody.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">DeFoor writes &#8220;peaceful&#8221; prose in his poems, and his using a hammer to damage a vehicle driven by a federal agent watching Vance&#8217;s home and then several windows on the home were not intended as a political statement, Laufman<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cincinnati.com\/story\/news\/crime\/2026\/01\/06\/william-defoor-ohio-jd-vance-cininnati-home-vandalized-court-news-updates\/88044116007\/?gnt-cfr=1&amp;gca-cat=p&amp;gca-uir=false&amp;gca-epti=z116963p119550c119550u004463d00----v116963&amp;gca-ft=97&amp;gca-ds=sophi\">\u2002told the court<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">&#8220;I just don&#8217;t think there&#8217;s anything political going on,&#8221; Laufman said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">DeFoor&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.upi.com\/Top_News\/US\/2026\/01\/05\/man-arrested-property-damage-vance-home\/7881767624375\/\">is accused<\/a>&nbsp;of felony damage, criminal trespass, criminal damage and obstructing official business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">He has a history of mental health-related cases heard by the Hamilton County Mental Health Court and has been arrested multiple times for vandalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">When DeFoor arrived outside of Vance&#8217;s home, he tried to break the windows of a Secret Service vehicle that was blocking the driveway, according to a criminal complaint filed by FBI Assistant Special Agent Gavin Hartsell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">A Secret Service agent and Cincinnati police announced their presence and ordered DeFoor to &#8220;stop and drop the weapon&#8221; he was holding, Hartsell wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">&#8220;DeFoor ignored all commands and began to use a hammer to break glass windows,&#8221; located on the front of Vance&#8217;s home, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Hartsell described the windows as &#8220;large, historic windows&#8221; that contained &#8220;enhanced security assets&#8221; owned by the federal government. He estimated the cost of damage at $28,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Vance on Monday said a &#8220;crazy person tried to break in by hammering the windows&#8221; on his family&#8217;s home and thanked the Secret Service and Cincinnati police for quickly responding to the matter in a<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/jdvance\/status\/2008188525162721647?s=46&amp;t=oyrhFPTdDb7xg0sSMMAZUw\">\u2002social media post<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.upi.com\/Top_News\/US\/2026\/01\/06\/vance-home-defoor\/2701767730377\/\">upi<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jan. 6 (UPI) &#8212;&nbsp;The man accused of vandalizing Vice President JD Vance&#8217;s home in Cincinnati has a history of mental health issues, his defense attorney said in court Tuesday. William DeFoor, 26, was arrested and is accused of vandalizing the Vance home at 12:15 a.m. EST on Monday while the vice president and second lady [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":52247,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1152],"tags":[29668,3580,35915],"class_list":["post-52245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-humanrights","tag-jd-vance","tag-lawyer","tag-residential-care"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52245"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52249,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52245\/revisions\/52249"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/52247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}