Would-Be Kavanaugh Assassin’s Parents Plead for Lenient Sentence Due to His Transgender Identity

DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—After Nicholas Roske was incarcerated for purportedly attempting to assassinate Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Roske’s mother discovered a hospital discharge paper in his unemptied suitcase with the name “Sophie Roske.”

“This is when several of the pieces of the puzzle started coming together,” Roske’s mother told the judge in a character reference, one of several by family members and friends urging the judge to consider his transgender identity in issuing a lenient sentence.

The government is seeking 30 years in prison for Nicholas Roske, whose defense attorneys revealed in a Sept. 19 filing that he is using female pronouns and going by the name “Sophie.”

Judge Deborah Boardman of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland—a 2021 appointee of President Joe Biden—who will decide Roske’s fate, refused to allow parents in a separate case to opt their young children out of LGBTQ school storybook lessons, a decision the Supreme Court reversed in July.

Roske, along with his mother and sister, suggested he should bear less blame for showing up outside Kavanaugh’s Maryland home in 2022 with a gun because he was still “in the closet” at the time of the incident.

“I am also sorry for contributing to a trend of political violence in American politics,” Roske wrote in a letter to the judge, explaining he was “raised by conservative Christian parents who loved me and still love me.”

Roske said the idea of committing violence would “never have occurred” to him if he had not been suicidal. He claimed he was taking medication and was going to therapy, but stopped during COVID-19 because he did not want to do the latter virtually.

That’s when he started questioning his gender identity, telling his sister but not his parents “due to their conservative views.”

“So when Dobbs came around, I was still in the closet and had not been taking medicine or going to therapy for two years,” he said. “When the draft leaked my self-esteem was at rock bottom, along with my hope for the future.” [Editor’s note: Dobbs refers to the U.S. Supreme Court‘s June 2022 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturning the concept of a constitutional right to abortion.]

Roske’s attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Picking Up the Pieces

“Since her incarceration, we have been able to have open and honest conversations about her gender identity and how that evolved,” Roske’s mother told the judge.

Roske struggled during COVID-19 and abandoned plans to pursue a master’s program when the classes went virtual, his father noted.

“One day, she suddenly said she was moving out of the house and into a communal living space,” his father wrote. “She lived there for a few months, then came back to live with us again. A few weeks later, she told us she was moving to Seattle.”

Months later, Roske returned home from Seattle, where he had “no job or prospects,” and began substitute teaching, according to his father.

Friends told the judge that Roske began embracing “nihilistic worldviews” and questioning his evangelical upbringing. (RELATED: Man Who Attempted to Assassinate Justice Kavanaugh Identifies as Transgender)

Roske was using the name “Sophie42#6535” on Discord in 2022, where he shared struggles with mental health and questioned what would happen if a Supreme Court justice died, court records indicate. His Google searches included “Nietzsche quotes” and “nothing is true, everything is permitted,” according to court records.

“Both of us, on our individual quests for moral truth, have had to confront the ugly hypocrisy that is the American church,” a friend named John told the judge, writing he “deeply empathize[s] with what drove Sophie to do what she did.”

“But what I think counts is what she did not do,” John continued. “This action of self-restraint is indicative of someone who is picking up the pieces of their morality in the absolute moment of truth.”

Roske’s sister, who identifies as gay, most explicitly told the judge that the circumstances that led to her brother’s incarceration have changed as their parents have grown in “acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community over the past couple of years.” Their parents have been attending Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays support meetings, she noted.

“While transgenderism is not the same as a gay identity, I have actively seen this growth mindset that my parents demonstrated in their relationship with me transfer over to their acceptance of Sophie,” she wrote.

Roske’s sister also expressed concern that he would be “housed in a men’s prison with limited access to gender-affirming care.”

In his letter, Roske notes he has been taking hormones while detained. A memo directing Bureau of Prisons facilities to provide hormone therapy to prisoners after a judge blocked Trump’s executive order in June is linked on the docket.

Roske wrote that his “whole perspective shifted” when he actually arrived in Kavanaugh’s neighborhood.

On June 8, 2022, Roske placed a 911 call, telling the dispatcher he was standing on the corner outside Kavanaugh’s home with a firearm and planned to kill himself.

“I had become so focused on the effects policy has on people that I forgot the judges and politicians making policy are real people, too,” Roske told the judge. “That became immediately clear to me, and I wanted to leave.”

“I’m out to my entire family now, and they have been very accepting,” he wrote.

Roske pleaded guilty in April. His sentencing is scheduled for Friday.

Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation

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