A 26-year-old man was sentenced to 73 months in prison for attempting to assassinate Scott Bessent
Kyiv • UNN
26-year-old Ryan Michael English was sentenced to 73 months in prison for attempting to kill Scott Bessent in January 2025. He pleaded guilty to unlawful possession of a firearm and attempting to bring it into the Capitol.
A U.S. court sentenced 26-year-old Ryan Michael English to 73 months in prison for attempting to assassinate Scott Bessent in January 2025, when he was a candidate for U.S. Treasury secretary. The federal prosecutor’s office reported this, UNN writes.
Details
English pleaded guilty to unlawful possession of a firearm and attempting to bring weapons and explosive devices onto the grounds of the U.S. Capitol. In addition to the prison sentence, the court sentenced him to three years of supervised release.
My office will not tolerate attempts to intimidate or harm government officials aimed at the very foundation of our democratic process and the values on which each of us depends. The defendant is now a convicted criminal and is going where he belongs — to prison
The circumstances of the attack
According to court documents, around January 27, 2025, English approached a Capitol Police officer near the southern entrance and said: "I would like to surrender." He also told the officer that he was carrying a knife and two homemade incendiary devices.
During the search, law enforcement officers found a folding knife and two homemade incendiary devices. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, they were made from small vodka bottles with cloth soaked in an alcohol-based disinfectant. They also found a lighter on him.
English said that he had come to the Capitol to kill a candidate for a Cabinet position, whose confirmation the U.S. Senate was scheduled to vote on that day.
The federal prosecutor’s office requested that he be sentenced to 121 months in prison. The court ultimately set the sentence at 73 months, after which English will also remain under supervision for three years.