WASHINGTON–A Massachusetts resident was sentenced on Aug. 18 to more than six years in prison after pleading guilty to planning the assassination of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
Ryan Michael English, 26, of South Deerfield, Massachusetts, will also be required to serve three months supervised release after his prison term. Prosecutors had asked for a 121-month sentence.
According to court documents, English traveled to Washington in January armed with improvised incendiary devices—Molotov cocktails—a folding knife, and a plan to kill Bessent, who at the time was a Treasury Secretary nominee.
English, who identifies as transgender and goes by the name “Reily” or “Raleigh Jane English,” had a change of heart and turned himself in to Capitol Police.
He told officers that he’d come to the Capitol “with the intention of killing a government official or burning down a think-tank based in Washington, D.C.”
A search of his person turned up two 50 milliliter bottles of vodka topped with strips of grey cloth soaked in a flammable solution, and a lighter. And in his back pocket, officers found a note that appeared to be addressed to a loved one, whose name was redacted from court documents.
“This is terrible but I cant do nothing while nazis kill my sisters. I love you. This is awful. Im so sorry,” it read.
In March, English pleaded guilty to “one count of unlawful receipt, possession, and/or transfer of a firearm and one count of carrying a firearm, dangerous weapon, explosive, or incendiary device on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol.”
For legal purposes, a Molotov cocktail is classified as a firearm.
“My office will not tolerate attempts to intimidate or harm public officials that strike at the heart of our democratic process and are antithetical to the values we all depend on,” U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said in a statement. “The defendant is now a convicted felon and is headed where he belongs: prison.”
The English incident is one of many this year, as the Secret Service and D.C. law enforcement work to take down rising threats to the safety of President Donald Trump and his cabinet.
Secret Service Director Sean Curran said on July 22 that his agency has seen an enormous uptick in threats against the president and other officials.
“The numbers are numbers that this agency and certainly I have never seen in my 24-year career,” he said during a press briefing. “They’re off the charts. I think the threat environment has become very volatile, and that’s just across the board.”
