A California resident who admitted trying to assassinate US supreme court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2022 was sentenced on Friday to eight years and one month in federal prison. Sophie Roske, who was charged under her birth name Nicholas Roske but now uses female pronouns, was sentenced at a hearing before US district judge Deborah Boardman in Greenbelt, Maryland.
The judge called Roske’s crime “absolutely reprehensible” but said she showed sincere remorse, has no other criminal history and is not likely to reoffend. The sentence included lifetime supervision upon release and a ban on travel to Washington without approval.
The sentence fell short of the 30 years in custody prosecutors had sought. US attorney general Pamela Bondi in a statement said the US department of justice will appeal “the woefully insufficient sentence imposed by the district court, which does not reflect the horrific facts of this case”.
Roske pleaded guilty in April to attempted assassination and had faced a potential sentence of life imprisonment. Prosecutors said she traveled from California with a handgun, ammunition, a crowbar, pepper spray and other items with intent to commit murder “for terroristic purposes”.
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At Kavanaugh’s home, Roske called police after seeing US marshals outside his house, telling the dispatcher she was suicidal and intended to kill Kavanaugh, according to court filings. Prosecutors said Roske, who was 26 when she was arrested, was dismayed at expected supreme court opinions ending the national right to abortion and rolling back gun regulations.
Speaking to the district judge at Friday’s hearing, Roske apologised to Kavanaugh and his family for “the considerable distress” she caused them.
“I have been portrayed as a monster, and this tragic mistake I made will follow me for the rest of my life,” Roske said.
Prosecutors had recommended a prison sentence of at least 30 years, saying Roske had planned her actions for months and was resolved to find the addresses of four unidentified sitting supreme court justices.
“The defendant posed a very real threat to our system of government, our constitution,” assistant US attorney Coreen Mao said at the hearing. She said no public official should live in fear of being killed at any moment for doing their job.
The judge in handing down her sentence said Roske had stopped short of carrying out her intentions. “Though she got far too close to executing her plans, the fact of the matter is she abandoned them,” Boardman said.
Roske’s lawyers had asked Boardman to sentence her to no more than 96 months because she had called 911 to surrender and co-operated with the authorities. Roske should be sentenced “for what she did, not for what she thought about”, they said. The sentencing comes amid signs of rising political violence in the United States, including two attempted assassinations of Donald Trump during his presidential campaign last year, and the killing last month of right-wing political activist Charlie Kirk at a college campus in Utah. Threats against federal judges more than doubled since 2021, according to US Marshals Service data reviewed by Reuters last year. Some judges who have ruled against Trump administration policies have faced threats and harassment along with their families, according to a Reuters investigation. – Reuters
