A Missouri man who crashed his 2023 rented U-Haul into a security fence near the White House was sentenced Thursday to eight years in prison, court documents show.
Prosecutors say Cy Varsis Kandura crashed into a rental truck near Lafayette Square near the White House in late May 2023. Prosecutors said he got out of his car and pulled out a red-and-white flag with a Nazi swastika before officers jumped in.
prosecutor said Kandura wanted to “destroy” the U.S. government.
“The plan to do this was to attack the White House, knowing that the president would be killed in the process. Mr. Kandula was trying to eliminate the American democratic process and turn the government into a Nazi-style dictatorship.” “he wanted to replace him,” the official wrote, adding that Kandura “particularly admired Adolf Hitler.”
In addition to the eight-year sentence, District Judge Dabney Friedrich sentenced Kandula to three years of supervised release and ordered him to pay approximately $57,000 in restitution and a $100 special assessment.
Kandula's attorney, Scott Rosenblum, wrote that his client suffers from schizophrenia and was diagnosed with schizophrenia by two different medical professionals.
“Neither expert has specified a date of onset, but both suspect that the first symptoms appeared in Sai's early years or middle school years,” Rosenblum wrote. “We both believe that his illness directly led to his attack.”
He spent months planning his attack. According to prosecutors, he boarded a passenger plane from St. Louis, Missouri, to Washington on May 22, the same day as the incident, which occurred around 9:35 p.m. local time. A crash involving a rented truck in Virginia cost the National Park Service $4,322.
Authorities at the time said no weapons or explosives were found on the suspect, and no one was injured.
