
A federal judge’s decision to hand down an eight-year prison term to the would-be assassin of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh has revealed that liberal judges will not deter violence from the left, even when it’s an attack on the court itself.
U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman, a Biden appointee, sentenced the potential assassin of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh to eight years, five months shy of what she gave a Maryland man convicted of wire fraud and related offenses. “Sophie” Roske, a transgender who came out as a woman during the trial, pleaded guilty earlier this year, was arrested in June 2022 outside Kavanaugh’s Maryland home carrying a pistol, knife, zip ties, and other items.
Federal prosecutors had urged a 30-year term, citing sentencing guidelines that include a terrorism enhancement for politically motivated crimes. The plot, they said, was driven by outrage over the leaked draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade.
A Biden judge spent seven hours today justifying a shocking 22-year downward departure from sentencing guidelines for the man who attempted to kill Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, at one point saying she was glad the crime made his mom accept his transgender identity. pic.twitter.com/GEyc9exkmE
— Luke Rosiak (@lukerosiak) October 3, 2025
The New York Post reported that the sentence imposed upon Nicholas Roske — who now identifies as a trans woman named “Sophie” — by Biden-appointed federal judge Deborah Boardman, amounted to a defeat for federal prosecutors, who had requested that Roske be sentenced to 30 years to life. Roske’s defense team had asked for an eight-year sentence and 25 years of supervised release.
“The defendant’s actions and intent — which were determined, focused, and undeterred for months — were extremely dangerous to the lives of multiple sitting judges, their family members, and the Constitutional judicial order,” prosecutors wrote in their sentencing memo filed Sept. 26.
“The sentence imposed in this case must send the powerful message, both to the defendant and to others who contemplate committing assassination to obstruct judicial independence, that these ends never justify the means and that the consequences are not worth engaging in these acts.”
Assassinating one of the justices could change the decisions of the nine-member high court “for decades to come,” Roske wrote over an encrypted messaging platform to another user in May 2022, according to prosecutors.
Roske further declared, “I am shooting for 3,” confessing elsewhere that “the thought of Roe v Wade and gay marriage both being repealed has me furious.”
There are very few people who believe a Biden judge would have had such a lenient sentence had the target been a liberal Supreme Court justice.
The ruling drew immediate criticism and comparisons to Boardman’s September 2025 sentencing of Ahmed Hussain, 23, of Prince George’s County, Maryland, who received 102 months in prison for conspiracy to commit wire fraud, identity theft, drug trafficking, and firearms charges tied to a pandemic-era unemployment scam worth more than $3.5 million. Hussain was also ordered to pay $557,078 in restitution and serve three years of supervised release.
The five-month gap between the two sentences ignited online backlash. Peter J. Hasson, an editor at the Washington Free Beacon, noted on Twitter (formerly Twitter) that Roske’s punishment for an assassination attempt was shorter than Hussain’s for a non-violent financial crime. Hasson’s post cited investigative journalist Luke Rosiak, who detailed the Roske sentencing and called the outcome “astonishingly lenient.”
This judge just gave Nicholas Roske a shorter sentence for trying to kill Brett Kavanaugh than the guy she sentenced last month for wire fraud and aggravated identity theft https://t.co/LuCD2nbGWf pic.twitter.com/CEyv5W93qq
— Peter J. Hasson (@peterjhasson) October 3, 2025
Critics argued the decision reflects ideological bias or misplaced judicial priorities, but it also reveals that Democrats are becoming the party that supports and justifies political violence.
Between the Biden appointee sentencing the would be Kavanaugh assassin, the Left’s reaction to Charlie Kirk, and the Democrats’ AG nominee in Virginia, the Democrats are becoming a pro-assassination party.
— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) October 4, 2025
The sentencing came on the same day that it was revealed that the Democratic nominee for Virginia Attorney General had privately fantasized about shooting a Republican and his family. Like Roske, he believed that “pain” was a great way to win policy change.
Neither Judge Boardman nor the Justice Department commented on the comparisons. Attorney General Pam Bondi responded to the pitiful ruling with a promise, announcing that “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.”
[Read More: Democrat Nominee Fantasized About Killing GOP Leader]