{"id":268010,"date":"2026-04-14T22:19:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T22:19:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/268010\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T22:19:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T22:19:18","slug":"altman-attack-suspect-moreno-gama-had-mental-health-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/268010\/","title":{"rendered":"Altman attack suspect Moreno-Gama had &#8216;mental health crisis&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Pedestrians walk  on Lombard Street past a driveway at the home of Sam Altman on Friday, April 10,  2026,  in San Francisco. (Photo by Lea Suzuki\/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)<\/p>\n<p>Lea Suzuki | San Francisco Chronicle | Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>A lawyer representing the man accused of throwing a lit Molotov cocktail at the driveway gate of OpenAI CEO <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2026\/04\/10\/sam-altman-house-hit-with-molotov-cocktail-openai-office-threatened.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sam Altman<\/a>&#8216;s home last week said Tuesday that he suffered from a mental-health crisis.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2026\/04\/13\/sam-altman-openai-ai-arson.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Daniel Moreno-Gama<\/a>, 20, was assigned a public defender team ahead of his hearing before Judge Kenneth Wine.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Our defense team is just now beginning our investigation, and what&#8217;s becoming clear is that Daniel&#8217;s actions appear to have been driven by an acute mental health crisis,&#8221; San Francisco Deputy Public Defender Diamond Solange Ward said in the courthouse hallway. <\/p>\n<p>Ward said Moreno-Gama has a history of autism and that the case is &#8220;clearly overcharged.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This case is a property crime at best,&#8221; she said. &#8220;No one was injured, and there appears to be some damage to a gate.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Moreno-Gama allegedly threatened to burn down OpenAI&#8217;s headquarters last week because of his hatred for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/ai-artificial-intelligence\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">artificial intelligence<\/a> technology.<\/p>\n<p>San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins dismissed the claim as grasping for straws and said the office has &#8220;no evidence of him having a mental health issue.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It wouldn&#8217;t matter if this was a billionaire or CEO or any average San Franciscan,&#8221; Jenkins said.<\/p>\n<p>Moreno-Gama, a Texas resident, was set to be arraigned on Tuesday in San Francisco Superior Court. His legal team asked to push the date until May 5, which the judge agreed to.<\/p>\n<p>Wearing an orange jumpsuit, Moreno-Gama looked solemn during the brief legal proceedings.<\/p>\n<p>He answered Wine&#8217;s question about whether he agreed to continue his arraignment at a later day with a simple, &#8220;Yes.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He was then quickly ushered out of the courtroom.<\/p>\n<p>Moreno-Gama is charged with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2026\/04\/13\/sam-altman-openai-ai-arson.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">attempted murder<\/a>, attempted arson and exploding or igniting a destructive device with intent to murder.<\/p>\n<p>He is separately charged by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/opa\/pr\/texas-man-faces-multiple-federal-charges-related-attack-ai-company-and-its-ceo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">federal prosecutors<\/a> with attempted damage and destruction of property by means of explosives and possession of an unregistered firearm.<\/p>\n<p>San Francisco Police Department officers\u00a0arrested Moreno-Gama on Friday and recovered a document in his possession that detailed his intentions,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/storage.courtlistener.com\/recap\/gov.uscourts.cand.467714\/gov.uscourts.cand.467714.1.0.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">according to a complaint<\/a>\u00a0filed in San Francisco federal court on Monday. <\/p>\n<p>In the document, Moreno-Gama expressed his aim to kill Altman and warned of humanity&#8217;s &#8220;impending extinction&#8221; from AI. He also listed the names and addresses of several additional AI executives, board members and investors, the complaint said.<\/p>\n<p>Altman addressed the attack\u00a0on his home in <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.samaltman.com\/2279512\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">a blog post<\/a> on Friday, and said it has been an &#8220;extremely intense, chaotic, and high-pressure few years.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He shared a photo of his family and called for de-escalation of &#8220;the rhetoric and tactics&#8221; within the AI industry.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We deeply appreciate how quickly SFPD responded and the support from the city in helping keep our employees safe,&#8221; OpenAI said in its statement on Friday. &#8220;The individual is in custody, and we&#8217;re assisting law enforcement with their investigation.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>WATCH: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/video\/2026\/04\/07\/openai-is-chasing-anthropic-right-now-says-big-technologys-alex-kantrowitz.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">OpenAI is chasing Anthropic right now, says Big Technology\u2019s Alex Kantrowitz<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"InlineVideo-videoThumbnail\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/108288231-17755903561775590354-45101518359-1080pnbcnews.jpg\" alt=\"OpenAI is chasing Anthropic right now, says Big Technology's Alex Kantrowitz\"\/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pedestrians walk on Lombard Street past a driveway at the home of Sam Altman on Friday, April 10,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":268011,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[37585,3884,3887,723,69534,1611,29038,2585,973,2792,101,103,102,115030,104,106,105,1970],"class_list":{"0":"post-268010","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-breaking-news-business","9":"tag-breaking-news-technology","10":"tag-business-news","11":"tag-crime","12":"tag-daniel","13":"tag-elon-musk","14":"tag-enterprise","15":"tag-internet","16":"tag-media","17":"tag-sam-altman","18":"tag-san-francisco","19":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","20":"tag-san-francisco-news","21":"tag-satya-nadella","22":"tag-sf","23":"tag-sf-headlines","24":"tag-sf-news","25":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268010","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=268010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268010\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}