Waukesha County Police
Nikita Casap
“I thought it was part of a revolution.” The judge called Nikita Casap’s crimes “horrible” and “inexplicable”. The young man hatched a plan in 2024 to attack Trump with an AK-47 rifle attached to a drone, and killed his parents to finance the operation — but lost the money in a bitcoin scam.
A young man from Wisconsin, in the United States, who killed his parents and appropriated the family’s money to finance a plan aimed at assassinate President Donald Trumpthis Thursday he was sentenced to a life sentence.
In January, Nikita Casap18, pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree intentional homicide in Waukesha County Circuit Court as part of a case related to the shooting death from mother, Tatiana Casapand stepfather, Donald Mayerem 2025.
According to , within the framework of an agreement with the Public Prosecutor’s Office, seven other charges droppedincluding two for concealment of a corpse and one for theft.
In Wisconsin, first-degree intentional homicide is punishable by life sentence. When the judge Ralph Ramirez began the sentence reading hearing on Thursday afternoon, the only open question was whether Casap could benefit from parole.
Ramirez, who classified the crimes as “horrible” and “inexplicable”ended up applying two life sentenceswithout the possibility of conditional release. The judge said he did not have a “crystal ball” that would allow him to know when, or even if, Would Casap ever change.
“I understand that he should not be considered eligible for conditional release because I don’t know… when, if and in what way profound and significant change can occur,” Ramirez said.
Mother and stepfather killed at home
According to the indictment, Casap will have shot dead his stepfather and motherat home, in Waukesha, around February 11, 2025.
According to the lawsuit, he remained in the room with the decomposing bodies for two weeks before fleeing across the country in his stepfather’s SUV, taking with him 14 thousand dollars in cashjewelry, passports, the stepfather’s gun and the family dog.
It would become arrested on February 28during a stop operation in Kansas, after four days on the run.
Federal authorities accused Casap of having planned murder of parentsacquired a drone and explosives and shared his plans with others, including a Russian-speaking interlocutor.
In a federal search warrant, authorities say he wrote a manifesto defending Trump’s assassination and that he was in contact with third parties regarding a plan to overthrow the United States Government.
“The death of the parents seems to have been a attempt to obtain financial means and the necessary autonomy to implement the plan”, reads this warrant.
Investigators found messages from January 2025 on Casap’s cell phone in which he asked How long would I have to stay hidden? before being transferred to Ukraine. According to the indictment, an unidentified individual replied in Russianalthough the document does not clarify the content of this response.
In another message, Casap asks: “So, while in Ukraine, I will being able to have a normal life? Even if it turns out it was me?”
To district attorney Leslie Boese told the judge on Thursday that Casap was too dangerous to return to freedom one day.
Based on an interview given by Casap to the FBI, Boese stated that the young man and his mother moved from Moldova to the United States when he was still attending elementary school, but that, as he grew up, he became increasingly dependent on what he described as “disturbing websites”.
The prosecutor did not specify which sites she was referring to, but said at some point that Casap had been research serial killers and armed attacks on schools.
According to Boese, Casap outlined, at the end of 2024, a plan to attack Trump with a AK-47 rifle attached to a drone. The young man later decided he wanted to drop explosives on Trump from a drone and then flee by boat to Ukraine, where he intended to hide for a decade.
Casap reportedly told the agents that didn’t care how many people Trump’s turn could be injured in an assassination attempt.
He then began chatting online with people who offered to sell him the drone and explosives. He ended up sending one of them US$8,700 in bitcoins from his stepfather’s account, without realizing that I was being a victim of fraud and that there were never any drones or explosivesBoese said.
“He fell for it,” said the prosecutor.
O Casap’s lawyer, Paul Rifeljasked Ramirez to make him eligible for parole after 20 years.
According to Rifelj, the news of a doctor who crashed his car into a Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, in December 2024, left Casap “out of his mind”, and decided he wanted to change the world by killing a politician. “Children are more than their worst acts,” said the lawyer.
Casap seemed to tremble while listening to arguments from the prosecution and defense. In an emotional statement, he said that loved his mother and that he was constantly worried about her, even when he saw her trying to reach something on a high shelf.
He added that he wasn’t that close to Mayer, although Mayer treated him like he was his son, but he ended up allowing himself to be consumed by hateful thoughts. “I thought I was part of a revolution“, he said. “I thought I was part of a war. I convinced myself that bad things had to happen.”
