North Carolina man sentenced for bomb threat to US Capitol

A North Carolina man with a history of mental illness was sentenced to five years of probation on Friday after pleading guilty to threatening to detonate a bomb near the U.S. Capitol two years ago.

“He no longer presents a threat,” U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras said before handing down Floyd Roseberry’s sentence.

In August 2021, Roseberry engaged in a four-hour standoff with police after threatening to “blow up 2 1/2 city blocks.” He said he was upset about the 2020 presidential election results and demanded President Biden resign from office, according to the Justice Department.

“This blood’s on your hands, Joe Biden. We can make a deal,” Roseberry threatened, according to prosecutors.

Roseberry claimed at the time that his truck’s toolbox contained a Tannerite explosive target and ammonium nitrate bomb and said there were four other “Southern boys” in Washington prepared to detonate bombs if he was killed, according to prosecutors. The defendant filmed the exchange on Facebook Live from his truck.

It was later determined that the metal keg Roseberry said was a bomb only contained a small amount of “smokeless black powder” and could not be detonated by him, prosecutors said.

The North Carolina man has since said he was in the midst of a psychotic break caused by ineffective treatment for his bipolar disorder, The Washington Post reported.

Addressing the court, Roseberry said he takes “full responsibility” for his actions and “understands why I’m here,” noting that he has since rewatched the videos of his behavior shared to Facebook.

Roseberry’s attorneys said in court filings he was suicidal and had been prescribed Adderall and Valium by a physician — not a psychiatrist. A psychologist with the D.C. Department of Behavioral Health said the medication could cause “manic and psychotic episodes” in people with Roseberry’s mental disorder, they wrote.

The attorneys described a troubled childhood with an alcoholic, abusive father and detailed a series of familial deaths in the years leading up to the incident to which he pleaded guilty.

“If I had been on the proper medication, it would have never happened,” Roseberry said Friday of his 2021 actions.

One of Roseberry’s five years on probation will include location monitoring and a rule that he can’t travel to Washington without getting permission from a probation officer. Roseberry will also pay a special assessment of $100, though a fee was waived after the judge determined he could not pay it.

Roseberry faced one count of threats to use explosives after prosecutors agreed to drop a more serious charge for attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction. The charge prosecutors dropped carried a potential life sentence, while Roseberry faced no more than 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for the remaining charge.

Prosecutors requested a sentence of 30 months and three years supervised release for Roseberry, citing the chaos his actions wreaked in and outside the Capitol and congressional office buildings.

The DOJ also noted that the incident occurred “just a few months” after the “political violence of January 6, 2021,” referring to the U.S. Capitol attack. Prosecutors suggested the proximity is something “the Court must also consider” when deciding Roseberry’s sentence.

“Mr. Roseberry effectively threatened the lives of hundreds of government officials and others working in surrounding buildings based in part on a political agenda just a few months after the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021,” prosecutors said.

Still, the government’s sentencing request was the lowest within the guidelines calculated for Roseberry’s offenses, which they in part attributed to his mental illness. At Roseberry’s sentencing Friday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Tortorice conceded Roseberry “might not be” a current danger to society, but said the government’s 30-month sentence request would still impose a “punishment” for his actions.

Mary Petras, Roseberry’s attorney, told the judge Roseberry’s sentence decision should be the “easiest the court ever makes” because of good behavior since his arrest. She also clarified for the “public record” that Roseberry’s actions were not linked to the Capitol attack.

“His brain glommed onto those issues, but (they were) not on his mind otherwise,” she said.

Roseberry’s attorney requested a sentence of time served, given he had been incarcerated for a year before being released into home confinement in August 2022.

Contreras, the judge, warned Roseberry he would not be as lenient if the North Carolina man acted unlawfully again, but said he expects Roseberry will not.

“I’m very optimistic that that was the worst day of your life,” Contreras said.

Updated at 3:35 p.m.

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