Club Q Shooter Reportedly To Plead Guilty To 74 Federal Charges, Including 50 Hate Crimes

The shooter who killed five people at an LGBTQIA+ bar in Colorado Springs, Colorado, intends to plead guilty to 50 hate crime charges and 24 firearm violations, according to multiple reports Tuesday.

Anderson Aldrich’s expected guilty plea, which would come months after a judge set a sentence of life in prison in connection with the November 2022 shooting at Club Q, is part of a deal with federal prosecutors that may help Aldrich avoid the death penalty, according to KRCC-FM, a public radio station in Colorado Springs . With the approval of a judge, Aldrich is set to receive multiple life sentences and a 190-year sentence on top of the original sentence , according to The Associated Press . Aldrich is currently at the Wyoming State Penitentiary.

In June 2023, Aldrich pleaded guilty to murder and 46 counts of attempted murder. Since Colorado has abolished the death penalty, Aldrich was sentenced to five consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole. However, the new federal firearm violations come with the possibility of the death penalty, according to the AP.

“The parties have agreed that multiple concurrent life sentences plus a consecutive sentence of 190 years imprisonment is sufficient but not greater than necessary to achieve the goals of criminal justice,” a court filing by federal prosecutors says, according to KRCC .

Before the Club Q shooting, Aldrich had been accused of threatening to kill their grandparents and of swearing they’d become “the next mass killer.″ They also used homophobic and racist language in online extremist spaces, NBC News reported.

Aldrich is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns , which has caused skepticism from people who knew Aldrich or who are experts in extremism,