White House shooter pleads guilty

Robert W. Pickett pleaded guilty Tuesday to charges related to a February shooting outside the White House.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- In a plea agreement, an Indiana man who opened fire outside the White House in February pleaded guilty Tuesday to two charges related to the incident. Robert W. Pickett pleaded guilty to one count of violating a local weapons law and agreed to an Alford Plea on the charge assaulting a federal officer. In an Alford Plea, a defendant acknowledges that the government has sufficient evidence to convince a jury of his or her guilt.

U.S. District Court Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr. set sentencing for July 31. Prosecutors said they will seek a three-year prison term followed by three years of supervised release. Under the terms of the plea agreement, Pickett can withdraw his guilty pleas if the judge does not accept the recommended sentence.

Prosecutors agreed to drop a charge that Pickett discharged a firearm during a crime of violence. That charge carried a mandatory 10 year sentence, to be served consecutively with any other sentence.

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Pickett was charged in a three-count indictment with brandishing a firearm at authorities February 7 as they responded to reports of a man with a gun outside the White House's south lawn fence. Police said they were forced to shoot Pickett when he refused to drop his gun. He was hospitalized for gunshot wounds to knee.

In a suicide letter he sent to Indiana newspapers just before the incident, Pickett, a former Internal Revenue Service employee, accused the IRS of destroying his life. Law enforcement sources said they also recovered what could be construed as another suicide note in the suspect's vehicle, found near a suburban Virginia subway stop.

A copy of Tuesday's plea agreement says that following the incident, Pickett claimed to police "to have ingested an unknown quantity of unspecified medications after exiting the subway stop near the White House prior to approaching the fence of the White House."

Attorneys in the case made no other reference to the medications during the hearing, and declined to elaborate afterwards.