William DeFoor, 26, was charged on Monday with obstructing official business, criminally damaging or endangering, criminal trespass and vandalism after an overnight break-in at the Vice-President’s £1 million home in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Police and federal officers swarmed the five-bedroom residence early on Monday morning after a suspect smashed several windows of the Vances’ property with a hammer and tried to break in, according to officials.

Photographs from the scene show several holes in the windows of the 19th-century hillside property.

The suspect had also vandalised a Secret Service vehicle on his way up the home’s driveway, one of the officials said. 

The Vice-President was not home at the time, having returned to Washington DC on Sunday, but had been staying in Cincinnati together with his wife, Usha, and their three young children, for the weekend, local media reported.

DeFoor, who attended a $27,000 (£20,000)-a-year Catholic school now appears to identify as a woman, going by the name Julia, according to the Daily Mail. 

The Cincinnatti-native grew up in a $1.3 million (£960,000) home in the affluent Hyde Park neighbourhood with two younger siblings, the child of a surgeon father, William, and a paediatrician mother, Catherine, who are both registered Democrats.

DeFoor appears to have created a Facebook page under the female name of Julia last month and included a transgender wellness centre among the page’s likes.

According to the Facebook profile, DeFoor graduated from high school in 2018 before attending the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music. The suspect did not appear to have finished the course and enrolled at Cincinnati State Technical and Community College last year.

DeFoor’s father, William, is a long-term Democrat who donated more than $11,600 (£8,500) to Kamala Harris’s campaign in the lead up to the 2024 election, according to the Daily Mail.

He also donated to Joe Biden’s presidential campaign in 2020, according to federal election commission records.