Nicholas “Sophie” Roske, the man who tried to kill Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2022, received a lenient prison sentence Friday after telling a federal district court he was a woman.

Roske will serve eight years, rather than the 30 years prosecuting attorneys recommended during the trial in Greenbelt, Maryland, according to The New York Times.

In part, Judge Deborah Boardman based her ruling on Roske’s “identifying” as a woman, something his defense attorneys disclosed in September.

Roske revealed in court that, at the time of the crime, he was afraid to tell his parents about his true “gender identity,” The New York Times reported.

Convicted as a man, Roske would go to a male-only prison, in accordance with President Donald Trump’s January executive order.

But, Boardman said, this would interfere with Roske’s ongoing “gender transition care.”

Boardman said her main reason behind the light sentencing, however, was because Roske didn’t follow through with his plan to kill Kavanaugh.

Roske “had had a reality check and reconnected with her own humanity,” Ellie Marranzini, his federal public defender, said.

The pundit Richard Hanania posted to X on Saturday, “Plan to kill a Supreme Court justice, get off easy because you’re trans. This should probably be a Republican ad. Too many leftists are still completely out of their minds on this issue.”

“The judge also said that a lower sentence was warranted because of an executive order issued by President Trump mandating that transgender women be held at male-only federal facilities, which she said could interfere with her continuing to receive gender transition care.”

Plan… pic.twitter.com/mUMBUfHg4C

— Richard Hanania (@RichardHanania) October 4, 2025

On June 7, 2022, in a plot to kill Kavanaugh, Roske flew from California to Virginia. After landing, he took a taxi to the justice’s home in Maryland, according to a Department of Justice news release Friday.

Early the next morning, U.S. Marshals spotted Roske exiting the taxi near Kavanaugh’s home — he wore dark clothes and carried a backpack and suitcase.

Roske aborted the mission shortly after, calling police to report himself. He was having suicidal thoughts and was planning to kill a Supreme Court judge, he told them.

Police discovered that Roske possessed a pistol, dozens of bullets, a knife, pepper spray, some duct tape, a hammer, a crowbar, and some other tactical gear.

He told police he was angry about the Uvalde shooting and the recently leaked Supreme Court draft decision, which would overturn Roe v. Wade weeks later.

On Friday, Attorney General Pam Bondi said it wasn’t over for Roske.

“The attempted assassination of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was a disgusting attack against our entire judicial system by a profoundly disturbed individual,” Bondi said in a statement.

“The Department of Justice will be appealing the woefully insufficient sentence imposed by the district court, which does not reflect the horrific facts of this case,” she said.

Contributing Journalist

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