GREENBELT, Md. (AP) — A California resident who attempted to assassinate U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh at his Maryland home was sentenced Friday to over eight years in prison by a federal judge, who imposed a punishment that is significantly more lenient than the Justice Department’s recommendation.
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. Prosecutors had asked for a prison sentence of no less than 30 years, which was the low end of the range recommended by sentencing guidelines.
Roske, then 26, had a pistol, a knife, zip ties and burglary tools in her possession when a taxi dropped her off outside Kavanaugh’s home in Chevy Chase, Maryland, just after 1 a.m. on June 8, 2022. Noticing two U.S. Marshals Service deputies guarding the residence, Roske kept walking down the street and took a phone call from her sister. Then she dialed 911, reported having suicidal and homicidal thoughts and said she needed psychiatric help.
The judge said law enforcement didn’t know anything about Roske’s plot until she called 911 and reported her crime unprompted. Boardman described Roske’s conduct as “reprehensible” but credited her with abandoning the plot before police detected her presence in Kavanaugh’s neighborhood.
“This is an atypical defendant in an atypical case,” she said.
Roske apologized to Kavanaugh and the justice’s family “for the considerable stress I put them through.”
“I have been portrayed as a monster, and this tragic mistake that I made will follow me for the rest of my life,” Roske said before learning her sentence.
Boardman acknowledged that Roske’s plot caused “real harm” to Kavanaugh and his family.
“He’s a justice of the Supreme Court, but he’s a human being,” the judge said.
After her arrest, Roske told investigators she was angry about a leaked draft opinion suggesting the Supreme Court intended to overrule Roe v. Wade, the landmark abortion case, the school massacre in Uvalde, Texas, and believed Kavanaugh would vote to loosen gun control laws, the affidavit said.
Roske’s case underscores the pervasive threat of political violence in a polarized nation: The number of threats and “inappropriate communications” directed at federal judges and other court employees more than quadrupled over a seven-year span, from 926 incidents in 2015 to 4,511 in 2021, according to the Marshals Service.
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