An Obama-appointed judge’s decision to give a relatively lenient sentence to an abortion-rights activist who firebombed a Wisconsin pro-life group’s office isn’t sitting well with conservatives.
U.S. District Judge William Conley sentenced Hridindu Sankar Roychowdhury, 29, of Madison to 7 1/2 years in prison Wednesday for using a Molotov cocktail to burn the Wisconsin Family Action’s headquarters in May 2022, six days after the leak of the Supreme Court’s draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade.
The building was empty during the 6 a.m. firebombing.
Judge Conley denounced the crime as “an act of terrorism,” according to the Wisconsin State Journal.
Roychowdhury faced a minimum of five years and a maximum of 20 years in prison for the attack. Federal prosecutors sought at least 12 years, while the Wisconsin Family Action recommended a 15-year sentence.
“We are disappointed,” WFA President Christine File said. “The court missed an opportunity to strengthen the protection of constitutional rights like free speech and free exercise, rights that have themselves been under assault in recent years.”
Julaine Appling, who was the WFA president during the attack, said the organization based its recommendation on “the punishment fitting the crime, not on retribution or vengeance.”
“This was a serious, premeditated crime that was the first of nearly 100 attacks on pro-life organizations across the country,” she said in a statement. “In light of this, we are disappointed in the judge’s decision regarding a crime the judge called ‘terrorism’ multiple times. The U.S. Attorney’s office had also recommended 12-15 years imprisonment.”
The radical pro-choice group Jane’s Revenge took credit for the arson, calling it “only a warning.” Since then, at least 90 pro-life pregnancy centers and offices have been attacked, according to the CatholicVote tracker.
In the May 8, 2022, assault, two Molotov cocktails were thrown, with one igniting. In addition, someone spray-painted “if abortions aren’t safe then you aren’t either” on the outside of the building.
Ms. Appling said a “civil society does not exist if violence is the default reaction to disagreeing with people.”
The 90-month sentence means Roychowdhury could serve less time than the six pro-life activists found guilty in January of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act with their 2021 hymn-singing protest outside a Nashville, Tennessee-area abortion clinic.
The abortion foes face up to 10 years in prison each at their July sentencing, a discrepancy not lost on pro-life groups.
Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America asked on X: “What’s more dangerous? Peaceful prayer near an abortion center? Or firebombing @WIFamilyAction’s offices? We’re pretty sure it’s the firebombing.”
Read the press release on the recent sentencing of the defendant in our office firebombing attack in May 2022 here: https://t.co/DgbJDmjugD pic.twitter.com/3HSKsd66Vj
— ✰✰Wisconsin Family Action✰✰ (@WIFamilyAction) April 12, 2024
Timothy O’Shea, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Wisconsin, called Roychowdhury’s arson attack “an act of domestic terrorism.”
“Domestic terrorism is cowardly and profoundly undemocratic,” he said. “It is not speech; it is not an exchange of ideas; instead, it is an attempt to harm or frighten one’s fellow citizens, thus driving Americans apart and weakening the fabric of our democratic society.”
He said the “U.S. Department of Justice, and this U.S. Attorney’s Office, with our local and federal law enforcement partners will never flinch from holding domestic terrorists accountable.”
Roychowdhury sought to flee the country after the attack, driving from Madison to Boston and purchasing a one-way ticket to Guatemala City, but law enforcement captured him at Logan International Airport in March 2023 before he could escape.
He was identified as a suspect based on DNA evidence that was confirmed after local police grabbed a burrito that Roychowdhury threw in a trash can.
Roychowdhury, who earned a doctorate degree in biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin, filed a letter of apology Monday with the judge, saying that “using tactics of fear and violence such as I have was totally unacceptable.”
“I wanted to start a small fire as an act of protest that I expected could be easily extinguished,” he said in the letter, according to the Wisconsin State Journal. “My own panic and incompetence thankfully ensured that one Molotov did not break, the second simply spilled and the remaining two remained unused.”
Ms. File said that “nearly 60 people filled the courtroom to support this person who committed a violent, unprovoked and hate-filled crime. Will the society of tomorrow support terrorism intended to silence people with whom we disagree? But perhaps most concerning, in the two years since the attack the defendant did not at any point express remorse to the people he targeted and harmed — until the judge asked him. We would’ve expected the court to have weighed this callousness toward us more significantly.”
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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