Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
A Massachusetts woman who told police she had brought homemade firebombs to the US Capitol to kill Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was sentenced on Tuesday to six years and one month in prison. Riley English, 26, will also serve three years of supervised release after the prison term.
English, a transgender woman, said she was going through a mental health crisis and abusing drugs when she drove to Washington in January 2025 and told Capitol Police she had come to kill Bessent on the day of his Senate confirmation. Nobody was injured, and the judge said her plan had an “exceedingly low or non-existent” chance of success.
advertisement
US District Judge Rudolph Contreras said Bessent was not at the Capitol when English arrived on January 27, 2025. He also noted that the Molotov cocktails she brought appeared to be incapable of igniting. English has remained in jail since her arrest and will get credit for the nearly 20 months she has already spent in custody.
During the hearing, English told the court: “I never wanted to hurt anyone. I’m not a political person. I’m not a violent person.” Contreras told her, “You’ve had a very difficult life. Hopefully, the progress you’ve made in jail to this date has set you on the right path.” The judge also said, “There was no indication that she was acting rationally that day.”
Prosecutors had asked for a sentence of 10 years and one month. Assistant US Attorney Brendan Horan said English had been planning the “attempted political assassination” for at least a month at a time when the threat of politically motivated violence has been rising in the US. “This was not a chance encounter or an impulsive act,” Horan said.
Defence lawyer Maria Jacob said English was “terrified and traumatised” by fears about what would happen to transgender people under the second Trump administration. “Our argument is that she was in a diminished mental state,” Jacob said. She also described English’s actions as “a cry for help.”
Investigators said they found a folding knife, two homemade firebombs and a lighter with English at the Capitol. Prosecutors said English told police she had been influenced by Luigi Mangione, the man charged with fatally shooting the CEO of UnitedHealthcare. According to prosecutors, she told officers she was “on a mission” and “had been thinking about this for a while because of Luigi Mangione”. They also said English told police she was terminally ill and “wanted to do something before I go”.
Police said English had travelled from Massachusetts to Washington intending to kill other Republican political figures, including Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and House Speaker Mike Johnson, and to burn down the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. Investigators said she changed her target to Bessent after reading an internet post about his confirmation hearing. The case ended with a prison sentence of just over six years, after the court heard both the prosecution’s account of a planned attack and the defence’s argument that English was in a deeply disturbed mental state.
With PTI Inputs
– Ends
SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
