The would-be Trump assassin fired off a furious email to a man he bilked out of $3,600 in a failed building deal last year in which he boasted of spending time in Taiwan as well as Ukraine, and complained of having to deal with ‘ungrateful, selfish, rich people’.
Ryan Routh, 58, is currently banged up in a Florida jail awaiting trial on one count of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and another of possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.
He was collared by cops in Florida on Sunday, having fled the Trump International Golf Club in Palm Beach after a Secret Service agent protecting the former president spotted the muzzle of his AK-47 rifle poking through a gap in the fence and opened fire.
Now, DailyMail.com can reveal that Routh has had multiple run-ins with the cops in his adopted home of Ka’a’awa, Hawaii, and had not been seen by neighbors close to his modest wooden home for a month.
On Tuesday, his home was seen being searched by the FBI who said the raid was the result of a sealed warrant filed in Florida.
Ryan Routh, 58, is facing gun charges for carrying an AK-47 style rifle near the boundary of Donald Trump’s Florida golf course
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His Hawaii home (pictured) was searched by the FBI on Tuesday who said the raid was the result of a sealed warrant filed in Florida
He had also developed a reputation for being difficult to deal with for customers of his building services company Camp Box Honolulu – among them vanilla farmer Saili Levi, 40, who hired him to convert a trailer into a mobile farm shop last year.
Levi says he paid him a $3,600 deposit for the work but was repeatedly fobbed off by Routh who eventually cut contact – but not before sending him a ranting email that included unhinged boasting about his attempts to get soldiers into Ukraine and Taiwan.
In the email, exclusively obtained by DailyMail.com, Routh begins by defending the work he had done before pivoting into a tirade about Taiwan and telling Levi: ‘You disappoint me as a human being’.
He went on: ‘I spent 5 months in Ukraine last year and 3 months there this year, and 2 weeks in DC and 2 weeks in Taiwan this year volunteering and trying to supply thousands of Afghan soldiers to help win the war and I spent thousands of dollars supporting freedom, human rights and democracy around the world and I come back to bullsh**t such as this.
‘I have been home less than a month and this is the quality of humanity that I must face; ungrateful, selfish rich people; blows my mind.
Neighbors close to his modest wooden home said they have not seen Routh for about a month
Customers of his building services company Camp Box Honolulu said Routh can be difficult to work with
Routh has a criminal record including arrests for everything from felony larceny, to a hit and run, and brandishing a weapon of mass destruction, in his case a machine gun
‘It is sad that the best humans among us are sacrificing themselves and getting killed on the front lines while the people that do not care live happy carefree lives; very sad.
‘Perhaps I would be happier dead on the front lines than dealing with rich people in fancy cars as I drive old broken down [sic] vehicles and hoping to keep my account out of the negative and hoping for food to eat.
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‘China and Russia will certainly win at this rate. You disappoint me as a human.’
Levi said he decided to cut contact following the email and has never had his money returned – or his trailer.
He told DailyMail.com: ‘I had initially paid him to build me a shop for my business, and instead of fixing the problem or giving me my money, he decided to do none of that and just sent me a nasty email.
‘I decided, you know what? It’s not worth it. I’m just letting it go. He took the trailer; he took my money.
‘Told me that I was a terrible human being. All I did after that was leave a review on his Facebook page for his company just to make sure nobody else gets into the same situation that I was in. Then I left it at that. ‘
He relocated to Ka’a’awa from North Carolina in 2018 with his fiancée and neighbors said they had no idea of his criminal past
A white pickup truck in Routh’s driveway has a Biden-Harris campaign bumper sticker on it
Routh has had a ‘driver’s license stopper’ applied to him – a Hawaii-only law that allows authorities to prevent him from obtaining or renewing his license until he pays for fines
Despite Routh’s behavior, Levi said he had no idea that the 58-year-old would go as far as he did, telling DailyMail.com: ‘There’s a few of us that knew him from this project [the trailer conversion] and we were all shocked.
‘I mean, we knew he was kind of crazy, but I didn’t know it was this crazy. Everybody’s a little bit crazy to an extent and at the same time, he must have his day in court, but all the accusations against him… it doesn’t look good.’
Most of the neighbors spoken to by DailyMail.com in the idyllic Oahu town where he lived had no idea of his criminal past which includes more than 100 counts chalked up in his home state of North Carolina.
His life of petty crime included arrests for everything from felony larceny, to a hit and run, and brandishing a weapon of mass destruction, in his case a machine gun – although he never spent time in prison.
After he relocated to Ka’a’awa in 2018 with his fiancée Kathleen Shaffer, 61, and daughter Sara, 31, and son Adam, 27, he continued his pattern of having run-ins with the law.
Routh was arrested on Sunday after he fled Trump International Golf Club in Palm Beach
Images revealed the backpack, GoPro camera and AK-47 style rifle that the gunman left behind
The suspect was able to get within 300 to 500 yards of Trump and was posted up outside the club around the 5th and 6th hole
Court records show four arrests on his record, all for traffic crimes ranging from driving without a license to delinquent vehicle tax and having no safety paperwork for his battered white Ford F150 truck.
As a result, he racked up fines totaling $280 – which he has so far failed to pay and as a result, has had a court-appointed collection agency hounding him since April 2023 when a default judgment was filed against him.
He also has had a ‘driver’s license stopper’ applied to him – a Hawaii-only law that allows authorities to prevent him from obtaining or renewing his license until he coughs up.
Neighbor Ethan Dinnan, 34, told DailyMail.com that he and other neighbors are reeling from having cops and media descend on their quiet street.
He said: ‘I haven’t seen him for at least a month and I haven’t seen his fiancée either. It’s been crazy since this happened – people coming and going constantly. It’s usually so quiet.’