Current:Home > FinanceMan gets 7½ years for 2022 firebombing of Wisconsin anti-abortion office -Momentum Wealth Path
Man gets 7½ years for 2022 firebombing of Wisconsin anti-abortion office
View
Date:2025-04-14 16:03:02
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin man was sentenced Wednesday to 7½ years in prison after pleading guilty to firebombing the office of an anti-abortion group two years ago.
Hridindu Roychowdhury, 29, of Madison, also will serve three years on supervised release under the sentence handed down by U.S. District Judge William Conley and was ordered to pay nearly $32,000 in restitution.
Roychowdhury admitted to throwing two Molotov cocktails through the window of the Madison office of Wisconsin Family Action on May 8, 2022, less than a week after the leak of a draft opinion suggesting the U.S. Supreme Court’s intention to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.
One of the firebombs failed to ignite, and the other set a bookcase on fire. Roychowdhury also acknowledged spray-painting the message “If abortions aren’t safe then you aren’t either” on the outside of the building. No one was in the office at the time.
Conley said Roychowdhury “engaged in a deliberate act of terrorism toward a group advocating a different view” from his own and had a “deep hate and anger that in his mind justified firebombing a building.”
A telephone message seeking comment was left early Wednesday evening with Roychowdhury’s federal public defender.
Investigators connected Roychowdhury to the firebombing after police assigned to the state Capitol in Madison reviewed surveillance video of a protest against police brutality. It showed several people spray-painting graffiti on Capitol grounds that resembled the message left on the Wisconsin Family Action office. The images also showed two people leaving the area in a pickup that investigators tracked to Roychowdhury’s home in Madison.
Police began following Roychowdhury, and in March they extracted his DNA from a half-eaten burrito he threw away at a parking lot. That matched a sample taken at the scene of the firebombing.
Police arrested Roychowdhury on March 28, 1993, at a Boston airport where he had booked a one-way ticket to Guatemala City, federal prosecutors have said.
Roychowdhury signed a plea deal with prosecutors agreeing to a federal charge of damaging property with explosives.
veryGood! (9366)
Related
- Nearly 400 USAID contract employees laid off in wake of Trump's 'stop work' order
- Donald Trump completes mandatory presentencing interview after less than 30 minutes of questioning
- Ryan Reynolds Brought a Special Date to a Taping of The View—And It Wasn't Blake Lively
- Apple's WWDC 2024 kicks off June 10. Here's start time, how to watch and what to expect.
- This was the average Social Security benefit in 2004, and here's what it is now
- Reverend James Lawson, civil rights activist and nonviolent protest pioneer dies at 95
- Naomi Biden testifies in father Hunter Biden's gun trial | The Excerpt
- Garry Conille, Haiti's new prime minister, hospitalized
- Costco membership growth 'robust,' even amid fee increase: What to know about earnings release
- Canadian-Austrian auto parts billionaire arrested on multiple sexual assault charges
Ranking
- Buckingham Palace staff under investigation for 'bar brawl'
- Maren Morris comes out as bisexual months after divorce filing: 'Happy pride'
- Book excerpt: The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir by Griffin Dunne
- Teenager among at least 10 hurt in Wisconsin shooting incident, police say
- Romantasy reigns on spicy BookTok: Recommendations from the internet’s favorite genre
- Dan Hurley staying at Connecticut after meeting with Los Angeles Lakers about move to NBA
- Who was the first man on the moon? Inside the historic landing over 50 years ago.
- This NYC vet makes house calls. In ‘Pets and the City,’ she’s penned a memoir full of tails
Recommendation
Moving abroad can be expensive: These 5 countries will 'pay' you to move there
Ryan Reynolds Brought a Special Date to a Taping of The View—And It Wasn't Blake Lively
Liberal Judge Susan Crawford enters race for Wisconsin Supreme Court with majority at stake
Ex-police officer who once shared cell with Jeffrey Epstein gets life in prison for 4 murders
Costco membership growth 'robust,' even amid fee increase: What to know about earnings release
Young person accused of shooting at pride flag, shattering window with BB gun in Oregon
Who was the first man on the moon? Inside the historic landing over 50 years ago.
University president dies after 3 year battle with sarcoma: What to know about rare cancer