A Missouri man who rammed a rented truck right into a gate close to the White House with aspirations of overthrowing the federal government was sentenced to eight years in jail Thursday, prosecutors stated.
Sai Varshith Kandula, 20, of St. Louis, pleaded guilty in May to at least one rely of willful harm or depredation of property of the U.S. within the May 22, 2023, incident. Prosecutors agreed to hunt solely an eight-year sentence.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for Washington stated his objective was “to overthrow the democratically elected authorities of the United States as a way to exchange it with a dictatorship fueled by Nazi ideology.”
“It was much less a ‘plan’ than an assemblage of delusional ideas stitched collectively by a typical thread,” Kandula’s lawyer wrote in a sentencing memorandum. After he was arrested, he was identified with schizophrenia, the lawyer wrote.
Kandula, an Indian nationwide who was a lawful everlasting U.S. resident with a inexperienced card on the time, crashed a U-Haul truck into the gate on the intersection of H Street Northwest and sixteenth Street Northwest round 9:35 p.m., the prosecutor’s workplace stated.
The truck grew to become disabled, and Kandula received out and pulled a flag with a Nazi swastika on it from his backpack earlier than he was arrested, it stated.
No one was injured within the incident.
Prosecutors wrote in their very own memorandum that Kandula practically struck two pedestrians, and that an eight-year sentence was warranted due to the seriousness of his actions and for deterrence functions.
Kandula’s lawyer wrote within the sentencing memo that he’ll probably be deported as a result of conviction, and can return to India to reside with household.
