Man who crashed U-Haul near White House barriers pleads guilty

A Missouri man who crashed a rented U-Haul truck into a security fence near the White House last year has pleaded guilty to damaging government property, federal prosecutors announced Monday.

Authorities said Sai Varsis Kandura, 20, was driving his truck on May 22 last year when it veered onto the sidewalk and crashed into a security fence around Lafayette Square in front of the White House. After reversing the truck and hitting the fence a second time, Kandula got out of the disabled truck and raised a Nazi swastika flag before authorities intervened.

No injuries were reported in the incident, but he nearly hit two people who were standing at the scene.

He pleaded guilty Monday to charges of intentional injury or taking U.S. property and is scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich in August. said the Department of Justice.

After his arrest, he was taken into custody and told authorities he was “trying to get into the White House and take over power and put us in charge of the country,” according to court documents.

“Mr. Kandura’s intent was to replace the democratically elected government with a dictatorship supported by Nazi German ideology and place himself in charge of the United States,” the Justice Department said in a statement. Ta. “Kandula admitted to investigators that he would have arranged the murder of the President of the United States if necessary to achieve his goals.”

Kandura, from Chesterfield, Michigan, could be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison, and prosecutors agreed to recommend a sentence of no more than eight years, the Associated Press reported.

Federal prosecutors said Kandura, who was 19 at the time of the attack, spent several weeks planning the attack. Before renting a truck and crashing it, he repeatedly requested multiple security companies to send armed guards and armored convoys.

After the failed attempt, Kandula rented a U-Haul truck to fly from St. Louis, Michigan, to Washington, D.C., on May 22, and crashed it hours later near the White House, according to court documents.

The incident cost the National Park Service $4,322 in damages, including repairing the barrier, removing oil and chemicals, cleaning up the spill and disposing of fluids from the crashed U-Haul, prosecutors said.