PHOENIX (CN) - An Arizona man accused of filing court documents detailing a plan to kill the president never intended to go through with it, his attorney told a federal jury Tuesday.

Attorneys made opening statements on the first of a four-day criminal trial in which Rene Ortiz, of Casa Grande, Arizona, is accused of threatening to kill either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris - whoever won the 2024 presidential election - and again threatening to kill Trump after he won. 

On Nov. 5, 2024, U.S. Marine combat veteran Ortiz hand-delivered a printed document to the Sandra Day O'Connor U.S. Courthouse in Phoenix that read: 

"I, Rene Ortiz, hereby move the court to execute the newly elected POTUS. I chose to execute the newly elected POTUS by firing an M-16A2 service rifle with a magazine of 6 rounds. The court and the defendants were warned to withdraw from their campaign."

On Nov. 25, 2024, he delivered two more documents to the Evo A. DeConcini U.S. Courthouse in Tucson, Arizona. Among other things, those documents read: 

"The plaintiff petitions the court for him to make an attempt to shot at the candidate with an M-16A2 service rifle with a magazine of 3 rounds from a distance of 300 or 500 yards, the rounds targeting the head, not the ear of the candidate."

Federal prosecutor Abbie Broughton told a 14-member jury panel Tuesday that Ortiz, fed up over an employment dispute with the Department of Veterans Affairs, wanted to draw attention to multiple civil complaints he had filed in the past, all of which had been dismissed.

"He made those threats because they were violent and threatening, knowing they'd be taken seriously," Broughton said. 

She said Ortiz included in the documents the fact that he was awarded in the Marines for marksmanship in hopes the threat would not be taken lightly.

Representing Ortiz, public defender Michael Ryan said the specific language cited in the indictment shows no evidence of an actual threat. 

"These aren't just statements," Ryan told the jury. "They are motions or complaints requesting permission to do it himself in a certain way. They require the court's approval before he'd be able to act."

Because a court would obviously never grant such a request, Ryan said no danger was ever present. 

"This is just the disorganized ramblings of a mentally ill person trying to get attention," he said.

Ryan said Ortiz's family and psychologist will testify in the next three days that Ortiz has slowly but surely been losing his grip on reality. 

"He's delusional," Ryan said. "He's grandiose."

He said the 56-year-old suffers from PTSD and has filed "dozens" of rambling lawsuits in federal court that don't make logical sense.

In the filings in question, Ortiz named plaintiffs like the Department of Veterans Affairs, the American Federation of Government Employees, "The Law Offices of Alpha Zulu" and two sitting federal judges who had dismissed his previous suits. He claims the first assassination attempt on Trump was a hoax, calls for the prosecution of every citizen who voted for him or Harris and requests a hearing before the president, vice president, speaker of the House and chief justice of the Supreme Court "to acknowledge their shortfalls and consider a transition of power in light of their failures."

"This is all within the same document," Ryan said. "None of it makes any sense."

He added that Ortiz does not own a firearm and has no means of carrying out the actions he described. 

Broughton said that doesn't matter. 

"What makes this a crime is the threats themselves," she said. 

Secret Service agents interviewed Ortiz about the court documents on Dec. 5, 2024. When asked if he still intended to assassinate Trump, he answered: "If my demands are not met."

When asked again, he said, "I'm going to stand by what I wrote. I've got nothing to lose."

Elizabeth Stephenson, an employee of the Sandra Day O'Connor clerk's office, testified that Ortiz "seemed to know what he was doing" when he delivered the documents to her office on Nov. 4, 2024. She said he had been in at least six times before to file other lawsuits, and in those encounters, she felt the need to act cautiously around him.

She remained on the stand at the end of the day Tuesday. Ortiz himself is not listed as a witness.

Source: Courthouse News Service