Madison, Wisconsin. On Wednesday, prosecutors charged a Wisconsin man with several charges, including arson, after he allegedly informed police that he attempted to set fire to a congressman’s office because he was angry over the federal TikTok ban.
Caiden Stachowicz, 19, was charged by Fond du Lac County District Attorney Eric Toney with felony arson, terrorist threats, attempted burglary, and property damage. If found guilty on all counts, he would be sentenced to more than 50 years in prison.
Menasha resident Stachowicz was expected to appear in court for the first time on Wednesday morning. According to online court documents, Judge Tricia Walker granted him $500,000 in cash bond and mandated that he refrain from communicating with Republican U.S. Representative Glenn Grothman or his staff. She also forbade him from having any potentially harmful weapons or supplies for starting a fire.
According to the documents, Stachowicz made an appearance from jail via video conference. They didn’t provide him with a lawyer.
The lawsuit claims that Stachowicz was standing close by when a police officer arrived at Grothman’s Fond du Lac business at around one in the morning on Sunday to investigate a fire.
According to the officer, Stachowicz told him that he set the fire because he didn’t like Grothman when he was using his extinguisher to try to put out the flames. Stachowicz was taken to the police department after the officer placed him in handcuffs. Damage was limited as firefighters and police swiftly put out the fire.
According to the complaint, Stachowicz admitted to the officer during a department interview that he purchased gasoline and matches in order to ignite a fire at Grothman’s office. He said that he was unable to smash the window when he attempted to enter the office in order to start a fire there. According to the complaint, he then lighted a match, poured the gas on an electrical box at the back of the property and around the front of the structure, and watched it burn.
According to the complaint, he said that he wanted to burn down the building since Grothman had voted in favor of closing TikTok and the US government was doing so. Last April, Grothman supported a bill requiring ByteDance, a Chinese corporation owned by TikTok, to sell its U.S. business by Sunday.
According to Stachowicz, he felt his constitutional rights were being violated by the shutdown. According to the complaint, he went on to say that although he had previously taken part in nonviolent demonstrations, he no longer thinks that peace is an option.
According to the complaint, Caiden said that the building was a government structure and that he intended to cause trouble and make a point by setting it on fire. Caiden expressed his wish that the entire structure had burned down.
He stated that he didn’t want to hurt anyone, including Grothman, when asked if he hoped that people were inside the building.
Following then-President-elect Donald Trump’s announcement that he would attempt to give ByteDance additional time to find a buyer, TikTok went offline late Saturday and returned to operation a few hours later.Monday following his inauguration, Trump issued an executive order telling the U.S. attorney general to refrain from enforcing the ban for 75 days.
Grothman would call The Associated Press immediately, according to Grothman spokesperson Noelle Young, when asked about the claims. As of early Wednesday afternoon, the congressman had not gotten in touch with the AP.