CA Resident Sentenced In Plot To Assassinate Justice Brett Kavanaugh

GREENBELT, MD — A California resident who traveled to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh's Maryland home to assassinate him was sentenced to 8 years in prison on Friday, a punishment that was significantly more lenient than the Justice Department’s recommendation, according to a report.

Sophie Roske, a transgender woman charged under her legal name, Nicholas Roske, had faced a maximum sentence of life in prison. U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman sentenced her to eight years and one month behind bars, followed by a lifetime of court supervision, according to The Associated Press.

Prosecutors requested a prison sentence of no less than 30 years, which was the low end of the range recommended by sentencing guidelines.

Roske of Simi Valley, California, was arrested on June 8, 2022, after she flew from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C. with a gun and ammunition in her checked baggage. She then took a taxi to Kavanaugh’s suburban home in Chevy Chase, authorities said.

Before she was arrested, Roske told emergency personnel she was having homicidal and suicidal thoughts and that she had flown from California to kill the justice, authorities said.

Roske pleaded guilty in April to attempting to kill or kidnap a Supreme Court justice. In a memo submitted before Roske's sentencing, U.S. prosecutors asked a judge to sentence her to 30 years in prison, claiming her plot to kill Kavanaugh required "extensive premeditation."

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The defendant’s explicit objective was to single-handedly alter the Constitutional order for ideological ends," prosecutors wrote in the memo.

According to the memo, Roske "meticulously researched, planned and attempted to assassinate" three sitting judges of the United States Supreme Court. A map found in her Google account contained location pins marking what Roske believed were the home addresses of four sitting Supreme Court Justices, prosecutors said.

In the month leading up to her arrest, prosecutors said Roske conducted internet searches for the homes of these four Justices, including images.

"The defendant's objective — to target and kill judges to seek to alter a court's ruling — is an abhorrent form of terrorism and strikes at the core of the United States Constitution and our prescribed system of government," prosecutors wrote.

The Associated Press contributed reporting.