Man Who Targeted Brett Kavanaugh Wanted To Kill 3 Supreme Court Justices

BETHESDA, MD — The man convicted of trying to assassinate U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh wanted to kill three members of the nation's highest court, according to a sentencing memorandum released Friday by the U.S. Department of Justice.

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

Before he was arrested, Roske told emergency personnel he was having homicidal and suicidal thoughts and that he 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 the memo, U.S. prosecutors are asking a judge to sentence him to 30 years in prison, claiming his 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.

According to the sentencing memo, Roske "meticulously researched, planned and attempted to assassinate" three sitting judges of the United States Supreme Court. A map found in his 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 his 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.

Roske's sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 3.