Man pleads guilty to 2022 firebombing of Wisconsin anti-abortion office
MADISON, Wis. — A Wisconsin man pleaded guilty Friday to bombing the office of a prominent anti-abortion group last year.
Hridindu Roychowdhury, 29, admitted to throwing two Molotov cocktails through the window of Wisconsin Family Action's Madison office on May 8, 2022, less than a week after the leak of a draft opinion suggesting that the U.S. Supreme Court express its intention 1973 would overturn Roe v. Wade. decision that legalizes abortion.
One of the Molotov cocktails thrown into the office failed to ignite; the other set fire to a bookcase. Roychowdhury also admitted to spray-painting the message “If abortions aren't safe, then neither are you” on the outside of the building. There was no one in the office at the time.
Investigators linked Roychowdhury to the firebombing in January, when Capitol Police in Madison reviewed surveillance footage of a protest against police brutality. The video showed several people spray-painting graffiti on the Capitol grounds that resembled the message left at the Wisconsin Family Action office. The footage also showed two people leaving the area in a pickup truck that investigators followed to Roychowdhury's home in Madison.
Police began tracking Roychowdhury and in March extracted his DNA from a half-eaten burrito he threw away in a parking lot. That DNA sample matched a sample taken at the scene of the firebombing. Police arrested Roychowdhury on March 28 at a Boston airport, where he had booked a one-way ticket to Guatemala City, according to the U.S. attorney's office.
Roychowdhury signed a plea deal with prosecutors last month agreeing to a federal charge of damaging property with explosives. U.S. District Judge William Conley approved the agreement during a hearing Friday.
Under the charge, Roychowdhury faces a maximum prison sentence of 20 years and a $250,000 fine, but prosecutors agreed to recommend Judge Conley reduce the sentence because he has accepted responsibility for the crime. A sentencing hearing was scheduled for Feb. 14.
Roychowdhury's attorneys did not immediately respond to an email sent Friday seeking comment.
“I am deeply grateful to our local and federal law enforcement partners for their dedication and persistence in solving this crime,” U.S. Attorney Timothy O'Shea said in a statement. “Arson and other acts of domestic terrorism are crimes that will be punished and have no place in a healthy democracy.”
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Harm Venhuizen is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.