A 26-year-old Massachusetts woman who drove to the U.S. Capitol with two homemade Molotov cocktails, a folding knife and a plan to kill Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was sentenced Tuesday to six years and one month in federal prison, closing out a case that began with her own walk-up confession to police.

Riley Jane English — court filings also list her under the name Ryan Michael English — was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras in Washington, D.C., to 73 months behind bars plus three years of supervised release. She will get credit for roughly 20 months already served since her arrest.

Prosecutors said English drove from South Deerfield, Massachusetts, to the Capitol on Jan. 27, 2025 — the day the Senate was voting to confirm Bessent — carrying the firebombs and a lighter with the intention of killing him. Bessent was not actually on the Capitol grounds that day. Rather than carry out the attack, English approached U.S. Capitol Police herself and said, "I'd like to turn myself in," later telling investigators, "I was going to kill Scott Bessent," according to an Associated Press account of the case.

A plot the judge called "exceedingly low" odds

Assistant U.S. Attorney Brendan Horan had asked for 10 years and one month, arguing English had carried out a deliberate, planned attempted political assassination rather than an impulsive act. Federal sentencing guidelines called for a range of 97 to 121 months. Judge Contreras went well below that, noting that the Molotov cocktails appeared incapable of igniting and that no one was ever in danger. "No one was harmed," the judge said. "The plan was basically impossible to succeed."

"I'M SORRY FOR THE FEAR I CAUSED THE COUNTRY."

That line came from English herself at sentencing, according to Fox News' report from the courtroom. Her defense attorney, Maria Jacob, told the court English was in the grip of a mental health crisis at the time, compounded by fear over the administration's stance on transgender rights and, both sides noted, influence from Luigi Mangione's killing of a health insurance executive weeks earlier. Reporting on the case also states English had considered — but did not act on — targeting other officials, including House Speaker Mike Johnson and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, before settling on Bessent.

Bessent, a hedge fund manager turned Treasury secretary, was confirmed by the Senate the same day English arrived at the Capitol. He has not personally commented publicly on Tuesday's sentencing. The case was prosecuted out of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, which has handled a string of Capitol-adjacent threat cases in recent years.

English's sentence includes credit for time served since her arrest, leaving a little over four years to serve before her three years of supervised release begin. Her case adds to a growing list of federal prosecutions over threats against Cabinet officials and lawmakers, though few have involved a defendant who turned themselves in before any attack was attempted.

English has 14 days from sentencing to file a notice of appeal, though her attorney gave no indication in court of plans to do so. The Bureau of Prisons has not yet designated which facility will hold her, and Capitol Police said only that they continue to refer all threat cases against protected officials to federal prosecutors.