Nicholas Roske, man accused of trying to kill Brett Kavanaugh, intends to plead guilty, court documents show

Nicholas Roske of California, who was found outside Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s home with weapons in 2022, intends to plead guilty to a federal charge of attempting to assassinate a justice of the United States, court filings obtained by CBS News revealed.

According to a submission Wednesday afternoon from Roske’s defense attorney, “Mr. Roske wishes to plead guilty to the one-count Indictment pending against him.” Roske had pleaded not guilty following his arrest.

A new plea hearing could be scheduled for as early as Monday in federal court in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Roske was found in June 2022 outside Kavanaugh’s Montgomery County, Maryland, home armed with a gun, knife and burglary tools, according to court documents.

Roske, who was 26 when he was arrested, is from Simi Valley, California. If convicted, Roske faced a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison.

On June 8, 2022, U.S. deputy marshals reported seeing a person dressed in black clothing and carrying a backpack and suitcase get out of a taxi that stopped in front of a current justice’s house at roughly 1:05 a.m., according to an FBI affidavit filed in court. The person looked at the two marshals and turned to walk down the street, an FBI agent wrote.

The Montgomery County Emergency Communications Center then received a call from a person, who identified himself as Roske, saying he was having suicidal thoughts and had a firearm in his suitcase. Roske also said he came from California to kill a “specific United States Supreme Court justice,” according to the filing.

Montgomery County police officers were dispatched to the location, where they found Roske. He was taken into custody without incident, and authorities seized his backpack and suitcase. Police found in his belongings a black tactical chest rig and tactical knife, a Glock 17 pistol with two magazines and ammunition, pepper spray, zip ties, a hammer, screwdriver, nail punch, crow bar, pistol light, duct tape, hiking boots with padding on the outside of the soles, and other items, the affidavit states.

After he was transported to the police department in Bethesda, Maryland, Roske told a detective he was upset about the recent leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion in a blockbuster abortion case and the recent school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. At the time, the Supreme Court was also set to issue a decision in a case involving a New York law imposing limits on concealed carry of handguns in public. The court ultimately struck down the law.

Scott MacFarlane

Scott MacFarlane is CBS News’ Justice correspondent. He has covered Washington for two decades, earning 20 Emmy and Edward R. Murrow awards. His reporting has resulted directly in the passage of five new laws.