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MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Prosecutors charged a Wisconsin man who allegedly told police he tried to burn down a congressman's office because he was upset with the federal TikTok ban with multiple counts on Wednesday, including arson.
Fond du Lac County District Attorney Eric Toney filed a complaint against 19-year-old Caiden Stachowicz charging him with felony arson, making terrorist threats, attempted burglary and property damage. He would face more than 50 years behind bars if convicted on all counts.
Stachowicz, of Menasha, was scheduled to make his initial court appearance Wednesday morning. Online court records indicated Judge Tricia Walker set a $500,000 cash bail for him and ordered him to have no contact with Republican U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman or his staff. She also barred him from possessing any dangerous weapons or fire-starting materials.
The records showed Stachowicz appeared via video conference from jail. They did not list an attorney for him.
According to the complaint, a police officer responded to a fire outside Grothman's Fond du Lac office around 1 a.m. Sunday and saw Stachowicz standing nearby.
The officer said that as he worked to put out the flames with his extinguisher, Stachowicz told him that he started the fire because he doesn't like Grothman. The officer handcuffed Stachowicz and took him to the police department. Firefighters and police quickly extinguished the fire, limiting the damage.
During an interview at the department, Stachowicz told the officer that he bought gas and matches to start a fire at Grothman's office, according to the complaint. He said that he tried to break into the office so he could start the fire inside but couldn't break the window. He then poured the gas on an electrical box in the back of the building and around the front of the building, lit a match and watched it burn, according to the complaint.
He said he wanted to burn the building down because the U.S. government was shutting down TikTok and Grothman voted “yes” to shutting it down, according to the complaint. Grothman voted for a bill last April that mandated TikTok's China-based company, ByteDance, sell its U.S. operation by Sunday.
Stachowicz said that he believed the shutdown violated his constitutional rights. He added that in the past he has participated in peaceful protests but no longer believes peace is an option, according to the complaint.
“Caiden said that it was a government building and wanted to cause disruption and make a point by starting the building on fire,” the complaint said. “Caiden said he wished the whole building would have burned down.”
Asked if he hoped people were inside the building, he said no and that he didn't want to hurt anyone and didn't want to harm Grothman himself.
TikTok went dark late Saturday, but the platform came back online hours later after then-President-elect Donald Trump said he would try to give ByteDance more time to find a buyer. Trump signed an executive order Monday after he was inaugurated instructing the U.S. attorney general not to enforce the ban for 75 days.
Asked for comment on the charges, Grothman spokesperson Noelle Young responded by saying Grothman would call The Associated Press directly. The congressman had not contacted the AP as of early Wednesday afternoon, however.
