Plea Deal Reached In Fire Bombing of Anti-Abortion Office
Hridindu Roychowdhury will plead guilty to felony charge, with penalty of between 5 to 20 years in prison.
Wisconsin Family Action’s offices in Madison sustained damage after a firebombing in May 2022. Shawn Johnson/WPR
A man charged with firebombing the headquarters of a Wisconsin anti-abortion advocacy group has agreed to plead guilty to one count of damaging property with explosives.
Attorneys filed the proposed plea agreement in federal court on Monday on behalf of 30-year-old Hridindu Roychowdhury.
The charge carries a sentence of between five and 20 years in prison. A hearing in Roychowdhury’s case is set for Dec. 1.
Officials responded to a fire at the Madison office of Wisconsin Family Action in May 2022. There, they found a wall spray-painted with the words “If abortions aren’t safe then you aren’t either.” The incident was just days after a draft opinion leaked, showing the U.S. Supreme Court was poised to overturn nationwide abortion rights established under Roe v. Wade.
Firefighters responded to the blaze early on a Sunday morning, and no employees were inside the office at the time of the firebombing.
As part of the plea deal, Roychowdhury admits he spray-painted the graffiti, broke a window of the office and threw a Molotov cocktail inside before pouring the contents of a second Molotov cocktail onto a windowsill and igniting it, court records show.
He was arrested at the Boston Logan International Airport in March of this year and indicted by a grand jury in April. Roychowdhury’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Investigators tied Roychodhury’s DNA to items at the scene, including the windowsill, a lighter and a Molotov cocktail. Law enforcement also found similar Molotov cocktails in Roychowdhury’s garage after they got a warrant to search his Madison home, court records say.
Authorities connected DNA profiles from at least two other people to items found at the scene, including a Molotov cocktail, according to court records. Those people are not named in the recently filed court documents.
Man agrees to plead guilty to firebombing office of Wisconsin anti-abortion group was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.
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