Post office arsonist and brother of late NFL player gets 5 years

SAN JOSE, Calif. (CN) — A federal judge sentenced a man to 60 months in prison Monday for setting fire to a San Jose post office last year.

Richard Tillman, 45, brother of the late NFL player and Army Ranger Pat Tillman, pleaded guilty in February after initially pleading not guilty in August to a federal indictment charging him with one count of “malicious destruction of government property by fire.” Prosecutors accused Tillman of crashing his car into a San Jose post office and setting the building ablaze in July 2025.

“Sorry for burning a building down, but I was trying to wake people up,” Tillman said at Monday’s sentencing hearing.

U.S. District Judge Edward Davila sentenced him to the mandatory minimum of five years in prison, followed by three years of supervised release and $2.3 million in restitution.

Before imposing the sentence, Davila, a Barack Obama appointee, asked Tillman’s public defender, Varell Fuller, whether he wished to speak on his client’s behalf.

“He has lived a remarkable life,” said Fuller. “One of profound grief and profound loss.”

In the courtroom Monday, wearing a dark green jumpsuit, with long gray hair and a long gray beard going white in the middle, Tillman expressed his thoughts when given the opportunity by Davila.

“I didn’t burn down a building for no reason,” Tillman said before launching into a lengthy monologue about creationism, the government and his family. He said he set fire to the post office to get people’s attention because he believed he was the “son of God” and a “guinea pig of God.”

Never raising his voice nor appearing angry, Tillman said, “my imagination is very wild,” and he “had to physically kill myself” to be able to commit the crime.

“Pat, by the way, is me,” he said. “Pat Tillman’s little brother says he is the second coming and it is barely in the news. I put them through hell,” he said. “I put myself through hell.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Pitman said he “didn’t have much to add,” and pushed back on Fuller’s suggestion to waive restitution.

Pat Tillman was killed in a friendly-fire incident in Afghanistan in 2004 after the military initially reported that he had died from enemy fire. A 2007 Defense Department report later revealed the true circumstances of his death, making national headlines.

Prosecutors said Richard Tillman crashed his car into the Almaden Valley Post Office in South San Jose around 3 a.m. on July 20, 2025, after loading it with several “Instalogs,” fire-starting logs that he also doused in lighter fluid.

According to the criminal complaint, Tillman then exited his car and used a match to light both the building and his vehicle on fire, all while livestreaming the event on YouTube.

Tillman also admitted to spray painting the words “Viva La Me” on the building after starting the fire but said he didn’t finish writing his intended message because the heat from the fire became too intense.

Tillman told officers from the San Jose Police Department that he set the building on fire because he was “trying to make a statement to the United States government.”

Davila granted Fuller and Pitman’s recommendation that Tillman go into a residential drug treatment program, which also handles mental health issues, during his incarceration in a minimum-security prison yet to be decided.

In court Monday, Davila asked both Fuller and Tillman a few times if Tillman understood what was happening.

“The magnitude?” asked Tillman. “Yes, I do.”

“I did the crime, and I am more than happy to do the time,” said Tillman.

As he exited the courtroom, he smiled and waved to family members in the audience.