Cody Balmer pleaded guilty to attempted murder and arson and was given a prison sentence. 

Cody Balmer, 38 of Harrisburg, was accused of firebombing the Pennsylvania Governor’s Residence in April. He pleaded guilty to attempted murder on Tuesday with a sentencing enhancement for terrorism. 

He will serve a prison sentence of 25 to 30 years and will be eligible for parole in 2050 when he is 63 years old. 

Balmer also pleaded guilty to 46 other charges, including aggravated arson, burglary, and the reckless endangerment of 22 individuals, including children between the ages of 8 and 16. 

“I think it was the right sentence based on, thankfully, that no one was hurt or killed… The fact that it was by guilty plea, that’s a good thing,” said Dauphin County District Attorney Fran Chardo in a press conference. 

After he was caught hours after setting the fire, Balmer confessed to police that he disagreed with Governor Shapiro’s stance on Israel’s response to the terrorist group Hamas attacking and killing over 1,000 Israelis on October 7th, 2023. 

Balmer said he had planned to kill the governor with a hammer he carried as he broke into the residence. 

During the attack in April, 22 people were asleep in the residence, including Governor Shapiro, his family, and guests that were celebrating the Passover holiday. Everyone was evacuated and escaped the fire unharmed. 

Two state troopers were on guard the night of the attack. 

Video evidence was played in court that showed Balmer breaking a window of the residence with a sledge hammer and throwing a Molotov cocktail inside. He then broke a second window and entered the residence. 

Balmer then tried to break through several doors inside the residence, including one leading to a hallway where guests slept. When he could not move farther into the residence, he set off a second Molotov cocktail and fled the grounds, according to Chardo. 

Shortly after the attack, as law enforcement searched for him, Balmer called 911 to turn himself in. 

Chardo read a letter from Governor Shapiro and his wife, Lori, at court. The letter said Shapiro and his family have been left with a “nagging sense of fear”, that includes trouble sleeping and anxiety while in public. 

“Time has now separated between before the fire and after the fire. It’s a fear and anxiety we are learning to live with, but we are expecting to carry with us for a lifetime,” the letter said. 

The public defenders representing Balmer and Balmer’s family argued he was experiencing a mental health crisis that led to his actions. 

After Balmer pleaded guilty, Shapiro and his wife made an appearance outside of his office in the Capitol. 

“To be honest, Lori and I have struggled over the last six months to try and make sense of all of this. The hardest part has been trying to explain it to our four children, and to our nieces and nephews. I’ve carried with me this enormous sense of guilt – guilt that doing this job that I love so much has put our children’s lives at risk,” the governor said.

He continued, “I think it’s important that in this time of rising political violence that none of us grow numb to it or accept this as the normal course of doing business. I’ve talked to people who are thinking about running for office who have said they don’t want to, because they don’t want to put their families at risk. These are good people who just want to serve, want to do right by their communities, who are being impacted by this unacceptable level of political violence.”