Man who broke down door near White House in attempt to overthrow government sentenced to 8 years in prison

A Missouri man who rammed a rental truck into a gate near the White House in an attempt to overthrow the government was sentenced Thursday to eight years in prison, prosecutors said.

Sai Varshith Kandula, 20, of St. Louis, pleaded guilty in May to one count of intentional injury or depredation of United States property in the May 22, 2023, incident. Prosecutors agreed to only asking for an eight-year sentence.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington said its goal was to “overthrow the democratically elected government of the United States and replace it with a dictatorship fueled by Nazi ideology.”

“It was less a ‘plan’ than a collection of delusional thoughts connected by a common thread,” Kandula’s lawyer wrote in a sentencing memorandum. After his arrest, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia, the attorney wrote.

Kandula, an Indian national who was a legal permanent resident of the United States with a green card at the time, crashed a U-Haul truck into the gate at the intersection of H Street NW and 16th Street NW around 9:35 p.m. , said the prosecutor’s office. .

The truck became disabled and Kandula got out and took a flag with a Nazi swastika from his backpack before being arrested, he added.

No one was injured.

Prosecutors wrote in their own memorandum that Kandula nearly struck two pedestrians and that an eight-year prison sentence was warranted because of the seriousness of his actions and as a deterrent.

Kandula’s attorney wrote in the sentencing memo that he would most likely be deported due to his conviction and return to India to live with his family.