CIVIC CENTER — The teen who scaled Trump Tower last week planned the climb for several weeks, buying equipment from Amazon and waiting for his parents to go on vacation before driving up from Virginia to pull the stunt, according to prosecutors.
The careful preparation was all part a desperate effort by Stephen Rogata, 19, to deliver "secret information" to Donald Trump, prosecutors said.
Rogata, whose lawyer described him as a former volunteer for Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign, was hoping the stunt would get him enough publicity to secure a meeting with the GOP presidential nominee, prosecutors said.
"I want to get a message to Trump," Rogata told police on Aug. 11, hours after he had been plucked from the 21st story of Trump Tower and whisked to Bellevue Hospital Center. "It has to do with when he becomes president, how he'll govern."
Rogata was arraigned via video link from Bellevue on Wednesday, where he has been held involuntarily for observation since he was arrested for scaling the tower at about 3:40 p.m. on Aug. 10.
He was charged with reckless endangerment, BASE jumping, criminal trespass and trespass, all misdemeanors. A judge ordered him held on $10,000 bail.
But his lawyer Tara Collins had urged the judge to release Rogata without bail, saying he may be going through a mental health crisis. She also pointed to his lack of a previous criminal history.
“At best what he did was profoundly stupid and lacking in good judgment,” she said. “As the court knows, 19 to 20 is the age when some mental illness begins to develop. Jail would be awful for my client.”
Rogata prepared for the climb by buying the heavy-duty suction cups several weeks prior from Amazon, and then practiced for the stunt on a three-story building near his home in Great Falls, Virginia., according to Assistant District Attorney Pierre Griffiths.
Then, when his parents left for vacation, Rogata drove to New York the day before the climb, Griffiths said.
Rogata, dressed in white hospital pajamas and sitting with his hands cuffed behind his back, was mostly silent throughout the arraignment except to answer yes-or-no questions from the judge. While his attorney spoke to the court, he stared at the table in front of him as his shoulder-length, dark brown hair covered part of his face.
Collins described him as a good kid from a good home, the son of a father with a distinguished career in the Navy and a mom with an MBA. He ran cross-country in high school and was at the top of his class before dropping out, she said.
Both his parents are currently at Bellevue and ready to support their son and make sure he returns for court appearances, she said.
Rogata’s climb caught widespread attention on Aug. 10, with live TV cameras trained on him for hours as he slowly made his way from the fifth floor to the 21st floor, where officers managed to remove a window pane and snag him.
He refused multiple attempts by police to coax him inside as he climbed, and endangered people on the street when several items, including a computer laptop, fell out of his backpack, according to Griffith.
“No thanks, I’m not taking the rope,” he told police at one point. “I appreciate that you’re looking out for me, but I’m going to see Trump.”
