Indian-origin man gets eight years for ramming truck into White House

Sai Varshith Kandula, a 20-year-old man of Indian descent from Missouri, was sentenced on Thursday in U.S. District Court for attempting an attack on the White House using a rented truck on May 22, 2023.

Kandula received a sentence of 96 months (8 years) in federal prison for the attempted assault, which prosecutors described as an effort to overthrow the democratically elected U.S. government and replace it with a dictatorship inspired by “Nazi ideology.”

The sentencing was announced by U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves, alongside key officials including William McCool, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Secret Service Washington Field Office; Sanjay Virmani, FBI Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Washington Field Office’s Counterterrorism Division; Jessica Taylor, Chief of the U.S. Park Police; and Pamela Smith, Chief of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD).

Sai Varshith Kandula, an Indian national born in Chandanagar, India, pleaded guilty on May 13, 2024, to a charge of willful injury or depredation of U.S. government property. At the time of the incident, Kandula was a lawful permanent resident of the U.S. with a green card. In addition to his 8-year prison sentence, Judge Friedrich sentenced Kandula to three years of supervised release.

As part of a plea agreement, Kandula confessed that he carried out the attack in a bid to replace the democratically elected U.S. government with a Nazi dictatorship, with himself in power.

The agreement stated that Kandula admitted to investigators that he was prepared to kill the U.S. President and others, if necessary, to achieve his goal. His actions, it added, were deliberately aimed at influencing or coercing the government’s conduct through intimidation.

Court documents reveal that on May 22, 2023, Kandula flew from St. Louis, Missouri, to Washington, D.C., on a one-way ticket, connecting through another airport. Upon arriving at Dulles International Airport, he rented a truck, stopped for food and gas, and then drove to the White House.

There, he deliberately crashed the truck into the barriers surrounding the White House and President’s Park at the intersection of H Street, Northwest, and 16th Street, Northwest. Kandula drove onto the sidewalk, causing pedestrians to flee the scene. After the truck struck the barriers, he reversed, then drove forward again, striking them a second time. The second impact disabled the truck, which began smoking and leaking fluids.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Kandula’s actions resulted in $4,322 in damages to the National Park Service. This amount covers the cost of repairs to the metal barriers and the cleanup of spillage caused by the crashed truck.

In a dramatic turn, Kandula retrieved a three-by-five-foot red-and-white Nazi flag with the Hakenkreuz symbol from his backpack and brandished it. He was immediately arrested by U.S. Park Police and U.S. Secret Service officers.

 

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