A Wisconsin man has been sentenced to seven years in prison for attempting to set fire to a Republican congressman’s office, an act he reportedly committed out of anger over the lawmaker’s support for a bill mandating TikTok’s Chinese owner to divest its US operations.
Caiden Stachowicz, 20, was also handed an additional seven years of extended supervision by Fond du Lac County Circuit Judge Tricia Walker, according to court records. Stachowicz, from Menasha, entered a no contest plea to an arson charge in November. This plea, while not an admission of guilt, is treated as such for sentencing purposes, and led prosecutors to drop associated burglary and property damage counts.
The incident occurred early last year, when a police officer responded to a fire outside the Fond du Lac office of Republican US Representative Glenn Grothman, located approximately 55 miles (90 kilometres) northwest of Milwaukee. The officer arrived around 1 a.m. and reportedly found Stachowicz standing near the scene.
Timothy Hogan, Stachowicz’s attorney, has not yet responded to requests for comment.
He told the officer that he started the fire because he doesn’t like Grothman, according to the complaint. He initially planned to break into the office and start the fire inside but he couldn’t break the window, so he poured gas on an electrical box behind the building and around the front of the building, lit a match and watched it burn, according to the complaint.
He said he wanted to burn down the office because the federal government was shutting down TikTok in violation of his constitutional rights and peace was not longer an option, the complaint states. He added that Grothman voted for the shutdown, but he didn’t want to hurt Grothman or anyone else.
Grothman voted for a bill in April 2024 that required TikTok’s China-based company, ByteDance, to sell its U.S. operation. The deadline was Jan. 19, 2025, but President Donald Trump has issued multiple executive orders prolonging it. TikTok finalized a deal two months ago to create an American version of of the social video platform. Trump praised the deal.
A spokesperson for Grothman’s congressional office didn’t immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
Source: independent.co.uk