{"id":173404,"date":"2026-02-11T12:49:21","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T12:49:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/173404\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T12:49:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T12:49:21","slug":"pat-tillmans-brother-pleads-guilty-to-setting-fire-to-northern-california-post-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/173404\/","title":{"rendered":"Pat Tillman’s brother pleads guilty to setting fire to Northern California post office"},"content":{"rendered":"

The youngest brother of late NFL star and U.S. Army Ranger Pat Tillman<\/a> pleaded guilty Monday in federal court to setting fire to a Northern California post office<\/a> last summer.<\/p>\n

Richard Tillman, a 44-year-old San Jose resident, was arrested July 20 in connection with a fire at the Almaden Valley post office and charged with malicious destruction of government property<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“In pleading guilty, Tillman admitted that he intentionally set the fire in order to ‘make a point to the United States government,'” the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office for the Northern District of California said in a statement.<\/p>\n

It remains unclear what point Tillman was trying to make.<\/p>\n

Read more: Pat Tillman’s brother allegedly started a fire at Northern California post office to ‘make a statement’<\/a><\/p>\n

Tillman was accused of backing his vehicle through the front door of the post office during the early morning on July 20 and setting the vehicle ablaze after exiting it. Tillman had loaded the vehicle with fire logs and doused it with lighter fluid, the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office said. The fire quickly spread to the post office, completely destroying the lobby. No one was injured.<\/p>\n

U.S. Postal Inspector Shannon Roark said in July that Tillman told officers at the scene that he had livestreamed the incident on YouTube.<\/p>\n

Tillman is in federal custody and is scheduled to be sentenced at an April 27 hearing. He faces a minimum of five years in prison and a maximum of 20 years, as well as a $250,000 fine.<\/p>\n

In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks<\/a> on the United States, Pat Tillman walked away from a three-year, $3.6-million contract offer from the Arizona Cardinals and enlisted in the Army, along with his younger brother, Kevin.<\/p>\n

Read more: Top NHL prospect Gavin McKenna facing misdemeanor assault charge after felony charge is withdrawn<\/a><\/p>\n

On April 22, 2004, Pat Tillman was killed by friendly fire<\/a> in the province of Khost, Afghanistan. He was 27.<\/p>\n

Following the post office fire last year, Kevin Tillman released a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur family is aware that my brother Richard has been arrested. First and foremost, we are relieved that no one was physically harmed,\u201d Kevin Tillman said. \u201c … To be clear, it\u2019s no secret that Richard has been battling severe mental health issues for many years. He has been livestreaming, what I\u2019ll call, his altered self on social media for anyone to witness.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, securing the proper care and support for him has proven incredibly difficult \u2014 or rather, impossible. As a result, none of this is as shocking as it should be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Get the best, most interesting and strangest stories of the day from the L.A. sports scene and beyond from our newsletter The Sports Report.<\/a><\/p>\n

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The youngest brother of late NFL star and U.S. Army Ranger Pat Tillman pleaded guilty Monday in federal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173405,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[6439,7,9,8,82883,82881,266,82022,81967,81968,82882],"class_list":["post-173404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-arizona-cardinals","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-david-paul-morris","tag-kevin-tillman","tag-northern-california","tag-pat-tillman","tag-post-office","tag-richard-tillman","tag-setting-fire"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}