A 26-year-old Massachusetts woman who brought homemade firebombs and a knife to the U.S. Capitol in a stated plot to kill Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent received a six-year prison sentence, roughly four years less than prosecutors requested.

U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras sentenced Riley English on Tuesday to six years and one month in federal prison plus three years of supervised release for the January 2025 plot. English, a transgender woman from South Deerfield, Massachusetts, pleaded guilty in March to two weapons charges after Capitol police arrested her on the day of Bessent's Senate confirmation hearing. She had been in custody for nearly 20 months at the time of sentencing and will receive credit for time served.

Prosecutors had asked for more than 10 years. Assistant U.S. Attorney Brendan Horan told the court the plot was no spur-of-the-moment act. English had planned it for at least a month, AP News reported, and drove from Massachusetts to Washington carrying two homemade Molotov cocktails, a folding knife, and a lighter.

Horan characterized it bluntly:

"This was not a chance encounter or an impulsive act."

English approached Capitol police officers on Jan. 27, 2025, and told them outright that she was there to kill Bessent. She also told officers she intended to kill Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and House Speaker Mike Johnson and to burn down the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank. She changed her primary target to Bessent after reading an internet post about his confirmation hearing, according to court filings.

English cited Luigi Mangione as her inspiration

English told police she was "on a mission" and "had been thinking about this for a while because of Luigi Mangione", the man charged with fatally shooting the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare. She also told officers she was terminally ill and "wanted to do something before I go." Whether any medical records corroborate that claim is not clear from the court proceedings as reported.

The case is one of a string of security threats at or near the U.S. Capitol in recent years, and it underscores a growing pattern of individuals who invoke political grievances to justify planned violence against government officials.

Prosecutors laid out the premeditation in their sentencing memorandum, which recommended 10 years and one month. The filing, available through federal court records, described English's conduct as an "attempted political assassination", Horan's characterization, that had been in the works for at least a month before she arrived at the Capitol armed with firebombs and a blade.

As the New York Post detailed shortly after English's arrest, prosecutors wrote that "the criminal conduct for which she is before the Court is not a momentary lapse in judgment; rather, it was a premeditated and calculated attempt to commit violence."

Bessent warned political violence threatens representative government

Treasury Secretary Bessent submitted a letter to Judge Contreras ahead of sentencing. His words carried the weight of a man who learned someone had driven hundreds of miles to try to kill him on the day the Senate was confirming his appointment:

"Political violence is an attack on the rule of law and on representative government itself. It also deprives our country of service by talented men and women with ability and integrity who may reasonably decide that no job is worth threats to themselves and their families."

Bessent added that he worries the country "cannot survive this assault." That concern is not abstract. Threats against public officials have escalated sharply, and incidents like this one, along with recent security threats targeting government leaders abroad, illustrate the breadth of the problem.

Bessent was not at the Capitol when English arrived. His confirmation hearing was underway, but the intended target and the would-be attacker were never in the same place. That fact figured into the judge's reasoning.

Judge Contreras cut nearly four years from the prosecution's request

Contreras, an Obama appointee, acknowledged that English's plan had an "exceedingly low or nonexistent" chance of succeeding. He noted the homemade Molotov cocktails appeared incapable of igniting. And he pointed out that Bessent was not present at the Capitol when English showed up armed.

"There was no indication that she was acting rationally that day," Contreras said.

He addressed English directly from the bench: "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."

Defense attorney Maria Jacob argued her client was in a "diminished mental state" and called the Capitol incident "a cry for help." Jacob said English was "terrified and traumatized" by fears about what would happen to transgender people under the second Trump administration. But fear about a political outcome is not a legal defense for showing up at the Capitol with firebombs and a knife, and the judge did not treat it as one.

English herself addressed the court. "I never wanted to hurt anyone," she said. "I'm not a political person. I'm not a violent person." That claim sits uneasily beside the fact that she drove from Massachusetts to Washington with homemade incendiary devices, told police she was there to kill a Cabinet secretary, and named two additional government officials as targets.

Capitol security incidents have drawn increasing attention in recent years, including the arrest of an Air Force major on Capitol grounds during a protest. Each episode raises the same question about whether the security apparatus around the nation's lawmakers and officials is adequate to the threat.

A parallel case drew a similar sentence, and a prosecution appeal

English's sentence echoes another recent case involving a planned attack on a senior government official. Sophie Roske, a California woman also described as transgender, was sentenced last October to more than eight years in prison for attempting to assassinate U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh at his Maryland home. In that case, prosecutors had recommended no less than 30 years. U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman imposed a fraction of that request, and prosecutors appealed the sentence as unreasonably lenient.

The pattern is hard to miss. In both cases, individuals planned violence against senior government officials. In both, prosecutors sought sentences well above 10 years. In both, judges imposed sentences that fell far short of those recommendations. And in both, the defendants' stated motivations were rooted in political grievance.

Horan told the court that the threat of politically motivated violence has been mounting. Prosecutors built their case around the argument that English's conduct was deliberate, planned, and aimed at the highest levels of government, the kind of act that demands a sentence severe enough to deter the next person who reads about a political figure and decides to drive to Washington with a bag full of weapons.

The judge disagreed on the length. Six years and one month, minus credit for time served, means English could be released well before she turns 30. Whether that sentence sends the message Bessent urged, that political violence is an assault the country may not survive, is a question the answer to which will depend on what happens next, not on what happened in the courtroom.

When someone drives hundreds of miles with firebombs and a hit list, the system owes the public more than sympathy for the attacker's difficult life. It owes a sentence that makes the next person think twice.