US woman sentenced to six years over plot to kill treasury secretary

US District Judge Rudolph Contreras on Tuesday sentenced 26-year-old Riley English, a transgender woman from South Deerfield, Massachusetts, to six years and one month in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release.

English had told police she traveled to the US Capitol in January 2025 intending to kill Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on the day of his Senate confirmation hearing. In court, she said she had been in a mental health crisis and using drugs at the time. "I never wanted to hurt anyone," she told the judge. "I'm not a political person. I'm not a violent person."

Bessent was not at the Capitol when English arrived. The judge noted that her plan had an "exceedingly low or nonexistent" chance of succeeding, since the homemade firebombs she carried appeared incapable of igniting. No one was hurt. Investigators also found a folding knife and a lighter in her possession.

Prosecutors had sought a sentence of 10 years and one month, arguing the plot had been deliberate and planned for at least a month, at a time of rising politically motivated violence in the US. Her defense attorney argued English acted in a diminished mental state, describing her as "terrified and traumatized" by fears over the treatment of transgender people under the second Trump administration.

English told police she had been influenced by Luigi Mangione, who is charged with fatally shooting a health insurance company executive, and said she had been thinking about the plan for a while. She also said she believed she was terminally ill and wanted to act before she died. Prosecutors said English had initially intended to target other Republican figures and a conservative thinktank, the Heritage Foundation, before switching her focus to Bessent after reading an online post about his confirmation hearing.

English has been in custody since her arrest and will receive credit for the nearly 20 months already served.