Election results showed Peña, who ran as a Republican, lost to incumbent Democrat Miguel Garcia, who won 74% of the vote.
The sentence comes amid a spike in political violence in recent years, including the June assassination of a Minnesota Democratic state representative and her husband. As he campaigned, Peña was a vocal supporter of President Donald Trump, who falsely claimed he won the 2020 presidential election over Joe Biden. Trump has pardoned his supporters convicted in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol and repeatedly threatened his political enemies, and he was the victim of two assassination attempts himself in 2024.
A jury in March found Peña guilty of enlisting a man and his adult son to repeatedly shoot up homes of four elected Democratic officials in December 2022 and January 2023 after he refused to accept defeat. He was also convicted of recruiting fellow inmates he was in jail with while awaiting trial to kill his codefendants.
The shooting rampage culminated in the early morning hours of Jan. 3, 2023, when, according to prosecutors, Peña and the 21-year-old man he enlisted fired a fully automatic gun at the home where state Sen. Linda Lopez and her children lived. Codefendant Jose Trujillo fired 12 rounds at her home, prosecutors said. Peña himself attempted to fire the weapon but it jammed, according to Riggs and prosecutors.
Lopez testified Wednesday before the sentencing that she and her kids are still traumatized. They’ve all sought counseling for anxiety and depression. Fireworks and other loud noises make them fearful, she said, and they are afraid whenever anyone walks past their house.
“The shooting of our home shattered what I was trying to form for my children,” she said.
Despite the shooting, she ran for reelection in November and won. The choice to stay in office represented her commitment to democracy, she said, and being undeterred by political violence.
“Our democracy must be open. Our democracy must not bend to intimidation or fear,” she said. “We will persevere.”
A jury ruled that Peña also orchestrated the shootings at the homes of other elected Democrats, including Bernalillo County Commissioners Adriann Barboa and Debbie O’Malley, who is now a state senator, as well as House Speaker Javier Martinez.
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Martinez and his wife, Dianna, also attended Wednesday’s sentencing. Dianna Martinez recounted finding spent bullets in her shower and garage, and said she keeps replaying the shooting over and over, thinking about how if bullet trajectories had been “slightly different,” she and her children could have been injured or killed.
She called on the judge to hold Peña accountable for his actions, calling him a “narcissist” who has “no regard for human life.” Speaker Martinez draped his arm over his wife’s shoulders as she spoke through tears.
“This was not politics,” she said. “It was terror. “
Peña did not speak in his own defense. Through his attorneys, he said he maintained his innocence and would appeal the conviction. He appeared stoic throughout the one-hour hearing and did not react to the sentencing that, if served completely, will keep the 42-year-old man in prison through the end of his life.
Prosecutors called on the judge to sentence him to 90 years in prison, saying in court documents that his actions represented an attack on the “American political system.” Peña hoped to force “political change by terrorizing people into being too afraid to engage in political life if they held views contrary to his own,” prosecutors said.
His attorneys asked for the mandatory minimum of 60 years, noting that mandatory minimums tied the judges hands but that other federal defendants are sentenced to less time for what they said are worse crimes, like murder and sexual abuse.
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Riggs did not fully explain why she arrived at a sentence of 80 years, but she said it was, at least in part, an effort to deter others from considering similar actions and to restore public servants’ trust that they can safely run for office.
Peña’s crimes were “all because you could not believe that you lost an election,” she told him. Saying it was “beyond a miracle” that no one was physically harmed, she recounted the path of violence that she believes would have continued to escalate if police hadn’t arrested his codefendant less than 24 hours after the shooting at Lopez’s home.
“All for what?” she told him. “For your ego.”
In addition to the 80-year sentence, Peña will face a $250,000 fine. The judge, whom Trump appointed in 2019, noted that Peña’s career as a “storm-chaser” meant he was not indigent and therefore capable of paying the fine. According to the judge and prosecutors, that profession defrauds insurance companies by billing them for overpriced and unnecessary repairs after natural disasters.
He will also be ordered to pay restitution, though the details of that were not clear Wednesday.
