WASHINGTON — A man who identifies as a transgender woman has been sentenced to more than six years in federal prison for plotting to kill Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, yet another example of a trans-identifying individual who plotted politically motivated violence.
Twenty-five-year-old Ryan Michael English (who goes by Reily or Raleigh Jane English) of South Deerfield, Massachusetts, pleaded guilty in March to weapons charges stemming from a plot to assassinate Bessent. On Tuesday, a judge sentenced English to 73 months and 36 months of supervised release, according to the Justice Department.
His gender identity was not publicly known until Tuesday, when court documents and testimony showed that English identifies as a woman.
Though prosecutors asked for 10 years, Judge Rudolph Contreras rejected the government’s request for a maximum sentence, a person who attended the proceedings told The Daily Wire. The judge highlighted that English identifies as transgender and took into account that English’s family did not accept his gender identity, saying that English had suffered because of this.
The government had argued that English should receive the maximum sentence to send a message that political violence is unacceptable. But Contreras rejected the government’s request, saying this was a low-visibility case and wouldn’t deter political violence because few people would learn about it.
According to the attendee, Contreras also asked prosecutors what message President Donald Trump’s pardons of January 6 defendants and efforts to establish a fund to compensate them sent about deterring political violence.
Contreras also said he would recommend housing English in a women’s prison, according to the attendee. A separate source familiar with the matter told The Daily Wire that English still has male genitalia.
English had approached a Capitol Police officer near the south door of the Capitol building on January 27, 2025, and said, “I’d like to turn myself in,” then admitted to possessing a knife and two Molotov cocktails, according to court documents. After officers searched English, they found that he had a folding knife and two improvised incendiary devices in his pockets, as well as a green lighter.
“I was going to kill Scott Bessent,” he admitted after he was handcuffed, according to authorities. He also told them: “For everything I’ve said, yes, I was going to kill a man in cold blood who I never met, yes.”
English struggled with his physical health, mental health, and substance abuse, the court filings state.
He told investigators that before focusing on Bessent, he had considered killing other government officials, including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, or attacking a Washington think tank, which Fox News identified as the Heritage Foundation. After seeing Bessent on TV while at a library in the D.C. area, he changed his mind and decided to kill the Treasury Secretary.
Brian Phillips, Vice President of Communications at the Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Wire, “We are grateful to law enforcement for getting these lunatics off the street. As always, vigilance is the price of freedom.”
Scott Bessent speaks during his Senate Finance Committee confirmation hearing in Dirksen building on January 16, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chen Mengtong/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images)
“Judith dear god I am so sorry,” English wrote in a note recovered by authorities, according to court documents. “You must understand I can feel myself dying slowly b/c of my heart. This is terrible but I can’t do nothing while nazis kill my sisters. I love you. This is awful. Im so sorry. I love u. Please stay alive and heal. you can. you are strong enough. F*ck them for pushing us so far. you don’t deserve this. Im so sorry for lying and plotting and lying. Please survive.”
That message was written on a receipt and accompanied by drawings of seven hearts, according to court documents. English also had the words “NO FUTURE NO CHOICE” handwritten on his arm.
When officers asked him why he was in Washington, he told them, “pretty much the words on my arms say everything.”
He also revealed that he was inspired by Luigi Mangione, the man accused of murdering UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
“I was planning on burning down [a Washington, D.C.-based think tank] which is near the White House,” he told authorities, the court documents show.
“I was going to go there under the guise of I applied for an internship…I was going to go to the [think tank], tell them what they wanted to hear, and basically say that I was ‘oh I was emailing with [individual-1] for a while, oh it must have been a scam, oh that’s so unfortunate’ and introduce myself….”
English detailed that he was trying to think of ways to meet a certain individual within the think tank and kill them “for revenge,” and if not, he was planning on “burning down the building.”
“I was making all of these plans in my head of what I could do,” he said. “If all else fails, I was going to slit my wrists on the White House steps. Just because that’s all you can do if you can’t hurt anyone else and you’re out of options and you’re out of time and you need to have an outlet and you need to show people how serious it is and you need to make one dramatic f*cking thing.”
English also told authorities that he had considered staking out Washington and looking for opportunities to harm “big players,” according to the filings.
English said he fixated on Bessent after seeing him on television, then stumbling on a Reddit post about Bessent saying the federal minimum wage should not be increased. “I believe he’s a billionaire …” English told authorities. He was particularly bothered by how Bessent smiled as he said the minimum wage should not be increased from $7.25.
“He said it with a smile on his face and that got under my skin … and this is how I decide who deserves to live or die right? Because I don’t get to make that decision, but it’s as if they’re making it for themself.”
English is one of a number of trans-identifying individuals who have been implicated in plots or acts of violence targeting Americans over politics or religion in recent years. The Daily Wire reported in September 2025 that Nicholas Roske, the man who attempted to kill Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, identifies as a transgender woman and was deeply mentally ill and suicidal.
On August 27, 2025, trans-identifying shooter Robert Westman killed Catholic school children in Minnesota before taking his own life. Westman’s attack came just two years after another trans-identifying killer targeted Christian school children in Nashville.
In May, Sebastian Gorka, the senior director for counterterrorism at the White House National Security Council, told The Daily Wire that the new White House Counter Terrorism Strategy includes “rapid identification and neutralization of violent secular political groups,” including those subscribing to transgender ideology.
Gorka slammed previous administrations for ignoring real threats while weaponizing agencies against Americans, saying that “Americans have witnessed the politically motivated killings of Christians and conservatives increasingly committed by violent Left-wing extremists, including the assassination of my friend Charlie Kirk by a radical who espoused extremist transgender ideologies.”
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