Richard Tillman faces federal charge for San Jose post office arson

SAN JOSE — A man charged locally with trying to destroy a South San Jose post office by driving a car into the building and setting it ablaze — while livestreaming the entire ordeal, including his real-time police interrogation — now faces a federal arson charge for the alleged attack, according to the regional U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Richard Tillman, 44, of San Jose, has been charged with malicious destruction of government property by fire, according to a federal criminal complaint unsealed Wednesday, also the day Tillman was arraigned in a federal courthouse in San Jose.

Tillman, the youngest brother of the late San Jose-raised NFL player and Army Ranger Pat Tillman, already faces felony arson and vandalism counts in Santa Clara County Superior Court. That case is on hold pending a mental competency examination that Tillman strongly objected to at his July 23 arraignment for the local charges.

While last week’s arraignment was underway, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California appears to have had its own criminal charge planned, as the unsealed federal complaint shows it was filed July 23. The federal charge should not be a surprise given that the lead agency in the arson investigation was the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, backed by the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

For the time being, the federal and local cases are occurring in parallel, though that could change. The U.S. Attorney’s Office said Wednesday that Richard Tillman is now in federal custody, though that does not change his actual physical detainment, which remains at the Santa Clara County Main Jail in San Jose.

His next federal court appearance is scheduled for Aug. 6, and he faces a minimum of five years in prison and as many as 20 years in prison if convicted on the federal charge. He also has a Aug. 15 hearing in Superior Court when a doctor is expected to be appointed to evaluate his mental fitness to stand trial; but the expected months-long competency process hinges on whether the local charges proceed, or give way to the federal case.

The federal complaint, authored by U.S. Postal Inspector Shannon Roark, largely retreads the initial San Jose police and fire investigation of the early morning July 20 destruction of the Almaden Valley post office on Crown Boulevard.

According to both sets of charging documents, Richard Tillman purchased “insta-logs” and lighter fluid from a nearby supermarket, and while livestreaming on YouTube, he backed his car into the post office, then ignited the logs, which had been doused with lighter fluid and scattered throughout the vehicle. He also allegedly spray-painted “VIVA LA ME” on the exterior of the post office, “but did not finish what he wanted to write because the heat from the fire was too intense,” Roark wrote.

Richard Tillman also livestreamed his on-scene interrogation by a San Jose police officer, though the video has since been removed and his YouTube page has been deactivated.