A Massachusetts woman who told Capitol police she came to Washington to kill Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is sentenced to just over six years in prison. Riley English, 26, was sentenced on Tuesday after she was arrested following her arrival at the US Capitol in January 2025.
Both outlets describe English as having brought improvised weapons, including miniature molotov cocktails. The reports say she turned herself in after arriving at the Capitol, and she made statements to police about targeting Bessent on the day of his Senate confirmation.
The sources also note that English attributes her actions to a mental health crisis and substance abuse. The Guardian adds that she said she was “in the grips of a mental health crisis” and that she was abusing drugs at the time, while the Washington Post focuses more on the sequence of events leading to the sentence. Both accounts agree on the core facts: the planned killing, the explosives brought to the Capitol, and the resulting prison term.
