{"id":173592,"date":"2026-02-11T15:55:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T15:55:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/173592\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T15:55:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T15:55:07","slug":"brother-of-late-nfl-war-hero-pat-tillman-admits-to-firebombing-california-post-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/173592\/","title":{"rendered":"Brother of late NFL war hero Pat Tillman admits to firebombing California post office"},"content":{"rendered":"

The brother of late NFL player and war hero Pat Tillman faces two years in prison after pleading guilty to firebombing a San Jose post office<\/a> using his car over the summer.<\/p>\n

Richard Tillman, 44, drove his vehicle into the post office on Crown Boulevard around 3 a.m. on July 20, sparking a fire at around 3 a.m., NBC Bay Area reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Richard KGO<\/p>\n

Police charged Richard \u2014 whose family said he struggled with \u201csevere mental issues\u201d<\/a> \u2014 after he spent more than six months in custody.<\/p>\n

He pleaded guilty to charges of malicious destruction of government property.<\/p>\n

Richard, dressed in an all-yellow prison jumpsuit, was seen smiling while entering his plea.<\/p>\n

His since-deleted YouTube page appeared to outline what he described as a mission to bring down the government, ABC7 Eyewitness News reported<\/a>. In a July 15, 2025 video, he declared that he was going to \u201ctake down the whole system\u201d \u2014 including the US and what he referred to as the world government.<\/p>\n

After the crash, the Tillman family put out a statement addressing Richard\u2019s actions, adding they were \u201crelieved that no one was physically harmed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo 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,\u201d his brother, Kevin Tillman, wrote in a statement. \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

Richard had a short stint in Hollywood but gained national attention when he spoke at his brother\u2019s funeral<\/a>, pushing back at the religious themes during Pat\u2019s service in 2004.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s not with God. He\u2019s f\u2013king dead. He\u2019s not religious,\u201d Richard said at the time. \u201cSo thanks for your thoughts, but he\u2019s f\u2013king dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pat died in a friendly fire incident in April 2004 at the age of 27 while serving as an Army Ranger in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

The NFL player left his career as a safety with the Arizona Cardinals to join the military.<\/p>\n

Pat served multiple tours of duty, including Operation Iraqi Freedom. He was awarded ESPN\u2019s Arthur Ashe Courage Award in 2003 and was posthumously awarded the Army\u2019s Silver Star, Purple Heart, Meritorious Service Medal and Army Achievement Medal.<\/p>\n

Richard Tillman, a San Jose native, had previously launched a children\u2019s book series,\u00a0\u201cLUNA-TIKES,\u201d\u00a0inspired by life as a stay-at-home dad and featuring sports-themed characters that teach young kids empathy and life lessons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The brother of late NFL player and war hero Pat Tillman faces two years in prison after pleading…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173593,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,15857,175,4182,82022,3586],"class_list":{"0":"post-173592","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-california-headlines","10":"tag-california-news","11":"tag-car-crashes","12":"tag-fires","13":"tag-metro","14":"tag-pat-tillman","15":"tag-us-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173592","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=173592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}