A Massachusetts woman who told police that she went to the U.S. Capitol to kill members of President Donald Trump’s cabinet said she was influenced by Luigi Mangione, the man charged with fatally shooting the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, prosecutors said in a court filing.
Ryan Michael English, who goes by Riley English, was arrested Monday and remained in custody after her initial court appearance on Thursday. English didn’t immediately challenge her pretrial detention, court records show.
English, 24, of South Deerfield, Massachusetts, told police that she felt like she was “on a mission” and “had been thinking about for this for a while because of Luigi Mangione,” prosecutors said. Mangione pleaded not guilty in December to state murder and terror charges in a Manhattan court.
“I pushed that away because I was thinking like that is so stupid, that accomplishes nothing, that poor kid just threw his life away for like a minute of vengeance,” English said, according to prosecutors.
English was arrested on weapons charges after she approached police at the Capitol and said she came there to kill billionaire investor Scott Bessent on the day that the Senate confirmed the South Carolina resident as Trump’s treasury secretary, according to a Tuesday court filing.
Investigators said they found a folding knife, two homemade firebombs and a lighter in English’s possession.
English also said she traveled from Massachusetts to Washington, D.C., intending to kill other Republican political figures — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and House Speaker Mike Johnson — and to burn down the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, according to police.
English changed her target to Bessent after reading an internet post about his confirmation hearing, police said.
English told officers that she was terminally ill and “wanted to do something before I go,” according to prosecutors.
“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,” they wrote.
Defense attorney Maria Jacob said English only went to the Capitol “as a cry for help” and didn’t intend to harm anybody.
“She was not aggressive when she approached the Capitol Police Officers. She never brandished any of the items as weapons and assisted police to retrieve the items on her person immediately,” Jacob wrote.
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