A Wisconsin man who tried to set a Republican congressman’s office ablaze after becoming enraged over the lawmaker’s backing of a TikTok ban bill learned his fate Thursday.
Caiden Stachowicz, 20, was sentenced to seven years in prison and seven years of extended supervision by Fond du Lac County Circuit Judge Tricia Walker for the January 2025 arson outside Rep. Glenn Grothman’s office — committed the day after the app briefly went dark in the US.
Stachowicz, of Menasha, pleaded no contest to an arson charge in November, with prosecutors dropping burglary and property damage counts in exchange.
Before he was handed his sentence, the firebug read a statement to the courtroom apologizing to Grothman, first responders, and the building’s owner, Fox11 reported.
“I don’t ask or expect anybody to forgive me. I only want you and everybody affected to know that I’m honestly sorry for what I did,” he said, according to the outlet.
“My mental and emotional issues are no excuse for my actions. I take full responsibility for them. Thank you for hearing me out. I harbor no bad feelings for you, and I wish you the best of luck in your career.”
A police officer responded to a fire outside Grothman’s office in Fond du Lac in the early hours of Jan. 19, 2025, and discovered Stachowicz standing nearby, according to his criminal complaint.
The arsonist told officers that he started the blaze because he didn’t like Grothman and had planned to break into the office 55 miles northwest of Milwaukee, to spark the fire, the complaint said.
After failing to break the window, Stachowicz poured gasoline on an electrical box and the area in front of the building, lit a match, and watched as it erupted in flames.
He told officers he wanted to burn down the office because the federal government was going to shut down the popular social media app TikTok. Grothman had voted for a bill in April 2024 requiring ByteDance, TikTok’s China-based company, to sell its US operation.
Stachowicz said the action to ban the app violated his constitutional rights and that peace was no longer an option. He added that he didn’t want to hurt Grothman or anyone else, the complaint said.
The deadline to sell TikTok was Jan. 19, 2025, the day of the arson. The app went dark late on Jan. 18th, but service was restored less than a day later. President Trump has since issued multiple executive orders to keep the app up and running.
TikTok finalized a deal two months ago to create an American version of the social video platform.
Danielle Gorsuch, one of Stachowicz’s attorneys, told The Associated Press after the sentencing that the incident was the culmination of a mental health crisis for her client.
“Caden took every caution to make sure no one was present in the building at the time of the incident, as he only wanted to hurt himself,” Gorsuch said, stressing nobody was hurt. “He took responsibility from night one.”
With Post wires
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