Violent Anarchist arrested for the "Jane's Revenge" firebombing of a pro-life group's office. Hridindu Roychowdhury

The attack was the first Jane's Revenge and most high profile attack that inspired dozens of other attacks. Hridindu Roychowdhury was Wisconsin arrested and federally charged with arson.

On May 2nd 2022 Politico reported on a the leaked Dobbs decision. The Dobbs decision would eventually overturn Roe v Wade, the abortion ruling that has been fought over by pro-life and pro-abortion groups for decades. Protests quickly erupted across the country, some of them turning criminal and violent. In addition to these protests, a nation-wide campaign of targeted attacks begun from more extreme anarchist associated with Antifa groups. These attacks included firebombings, graffiti, and smashing out windows. AntifaWatch has documented many of these attacks on our tracker.

The highest profile attack and one of the first firebombings took place in Wisconsin on May 7th. Images of the arson damage and the graffiti quickly surfaced online. Extremist podcaster Robert Evans received and published a message claiming responsibility for the attack and promising more attacks. The message identified the group as Jane's Revenge.

 

Jane's Revenge communique

This message rapidly spread on social media, and other attacks took place with the same graffiti also claiming to be Jane's Revenge. Despite the large number of attacks, very few arrests were made. Only two others were arrested by January 2023, they were Antifa members from Florida, Caleb Freestone and Amber Smith-Stewart who were arrested for their alleged Jane's Revenge vandalism.

 

Caleb Freestone and Amber Smith Stewart

On March 28th 2023 Hridindu Sankar Roychowdhury was arrested in the Boston airport by federal authorities for his alleged part in the Madison attack. Roychowdhury is a Protein Engineer and Computational Biologist who received his PhD from University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The criminal complaint against Roychowdhury shows how police found him. Following the attack the ATF collected a glass container with an attached fabric cloth for DNA analysis, on the cloth they found DNA profiles from three different individuals. While federal authorities had DNA, they found no matches within the national database called CODIS.

The investigation appears to have gone cold for some time after that, until in January of 2023, following the death of Antifa gunman Manuel "Tortuguita" Teran in Atlanta a protest was held in support in Madison Wisconsin. The protest was held on January 21st at the state capitol where Wisconsin State Capitol Police were watching. During the demonstration they noticed multiple individuals spray painting graffiti. This graffiti had a unique cursive style, that is somewhat uncommon to more block letter graffiti styles. Law enforcement noted a potential connection to the firebombing attack and began making an effort to identify the vandals.

 

Graffiti at the Madison protest

Law enforcement went through CCTV cameras to find a white Toyota pickup that had entered around the time. They linked this truck with Roychowdhury and began surveillance. On March 1st they saw Roychowdhury throw away a bag and retrieved it. In the bag they found an unfinished burrito. This bag was submitted for DNA analysis and found a match with the molotov glass.

 

Burrito with DNA being found

Limited other information was released, however our exclusive robust social media research was able to build a more detailed profile on Roychowdhury's extremist background despite his Twitter account being locked.

First we looked at follower data to get an idea of where he got his information and who he may have associated with ideologically. In this we found a huge number of violent extremist groups such as crimethinc, PNWYLF, Puget Sound JBGC, It's Going Down News, Filler PGH, submedia, SRA, Defend the ATL Forest, and many more.

Following this we ran our DeletedTweets project on the account. While we don't know if he deleted the tweets, because the account is locked all archived tweets are treated as deleted, that report can be found here.

While some of the tweets were about his PhD work and coworkers, many expressed a violent anarchist ideology. This extremism dates back to atleast 2019, where he expressed an interest in joining the YPG like violent extremist Dan Baker who is currently in federal prison for his threats. Roychowdhury also interacted with other violent extremists such Antifa nail bomber Richard T. Hunsinger, DNA analysis was also used to identify Hunsinger.

 

Collage of Roychowdhury's Tweets

This further shown in a January 2021 tweet where Roychowdhury angirly attacked Antifa international for trying to claim that the 2020 riots were not a coup against the state, asking why they even have a black (anarchist) flag if they're going to go about peace policing and playing down the violence against the state and other targets that took place during the 2020 riots.

 

Roychowdhury attacking Antifa international

As there were 3 individual's DNA found on the molotov, Roychowdhury may be the first of several to be arrested from this attack. Left wing extremists may associate themselves with a variety of different names such as Jane's Revenge, 'StopCopCity' and Antifa the underlying violent ideology remains the same. AntifaWatch will provide updates to the court cases on our social media, and if there are any large updates on this website.

NYC Anarchist gets time served for firebombing a police car while trying to create terrorist organization modeled after ISIS - Sam Resto

Sam Resto planned to create 'Geronimo' a terrorist organization that initiated members by having them firebomb police cars until he was arrested for firebombing a police car. Despite these facts he escaped a terrorism enhancement and was sentenced to just time served (26 months) for his terror campaign

As many of the 2020 riot federal cases have come to a close, one case flew heavily under the radar, with no news outlets covering it. Sam Resto, a New York City anarchist and BLM supporter was arrested on August 13th 2020 for the arson of a NYPD police vehicle. The case on the surface wasn't that unusual from a laundry list of other BLM/Antifa arson cases such as the NYC Corey Smith and Elaine Carberry case, however the case was for more extreme in its plotting for terrorism, despite this Sam Resto escaped a terrorism enhancement and recieved only 26 months (time served) in prison.

Escalating extremism

The documented criminal behavior from Sam Resto starts with lower level vandalism during the 2020 Summer George Floyd riots. At some point during the summer an affinity group of extremists that Resto associated with was infiltrated by NYPD. The group had at least 2 NYPD officers infiltrate them, with 3 others besides Resto being referred to as uncharged co-conspirators.

Sam Resto's first known act was vandalizing the George Washington Statue on the Washington Square Park Arch with red paint. The 'red paint' style vandalism was a frequently done as a way of representing "blood on your hands" style messaging.

 

George Washington Statue Vandalism

Following this his desire for illegal actions grew, going to a "Occupy City Hall" demonstration. The Occupy City Hall was NYC BLM/Antifa's attempt at 'Autonomous Zone' style area modeled after the CHAZ/CHOP, and was even given the name “City Hall Autonomous Zone”. The zone didn't grow or have the police capitulate like Seattle so it didn't last long.

In NYC to cover the Occupy City Hall protest for @townhallcom and people have set up a “No Pig Zone.” They are calling for the city to defund and/or abolish the NYPD.

A sign says this is the “City Hall Autonomous Zone.” pic.twitter.com/NtMXPlR2LW

— Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) June 30, 2020

Resto came to the City Hall zone with a plan to destroy a Christopher Columbus statue in a "high risk direct action" that would include him using lasers and paintball guns to shoot out cameras. He also expressed in interest in using smoke bombs, thermite, and propane torches or the direct action. However during his scouting of the Central Park and the Christopher Columbus statue he found the NYPD protecting the statue, a frequent target of Antifa/BLM. This discouraged Resto from the plot, and he started plotting arson attacks targeting the park itself, the police, and police vehicles.

 

Mapping of cameras in central park

Following the Christopher Columbus statue failure, Resto made his first move toward arson. Buying a gas can at a July 12 Bay Ridge protest. However after pouring the gas into bottles to attack an unguarded NYPD vehicle, uniformed police arrived prohibiting this. Resto set a trash can on fire later in the demonstration as a consolation.

Several days later on the 15th Resto was involved in a protest on the Brooklyn Bridge that turned violent. The protest turned violent riot left multiple NYPD officers bloody and got a significant amount of media coverage. Resto was arrested at the demonstration and after being released wanted to set fire to a police car in retaliation.

Three officers violently attacked by protesters crossing the Brooklyn Bridge. The officers sustained serious injuries.

This is not peaceful protest, this will not be tolerated. pic.twitter.com/cYuDX8G7ku

— NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) July 15, 2020

Two days after the arrest Resto spray painted a police van with “don’t start this car” and “kaboom” with an Anarchist 'A' in an apparent bomb threat. The acts and plotting escalated with plans for caltrops, shooting at federal officers, and sharing guides for making explosives as part of his direct action.

Arson

On the night of July 28th Sam Resto took the leap from violent plots and vandalism to arson. He purchased a gasoline and brought it to a protest near Gracie Mansion. He split the gasoline into smaller bottles and distributed them to several others. Resto identified a NYPD car to target, and despite 3 people telling him it was a bad idea, carried out the attack.

 

Sam Resto carrying out his firebombing

Resto was ecastic about his firebombing, describing himself as "an expert pyromaniac" and that he was "ready for round two". The firebombing left the vehicle a complete loss.

 

Damage to NYPD vehicle

Arrest

While police were aware of Resto, having infiltrated the affinity group, they were investigating the larger group with him and did not make an arrest that night. Following the firebombing Resto abandoned his backpack in central park. In the bag they found a Guy Fawkes mask, a hammer, lighters, and a gas can covered in his fingerprints.

Resto started to express concerns over being caught due to fingerprints being on the gas can. He plotted moving apartments and thought for someone to take tools including a crossbow and paintball gun he had purchased for other plots. In all of this concern, he never showed any remorse stating again that he wanted people to know the arson attack was "the movement fucking them up".

On August 13th Resto was arrested at his place of employment, where he was located hiding under his desk. He sent out a quick text to his affinity group saying "cops at my job everybody run". Resto appeared very ready to run, having his passport in his bag. Police further found he had spray painted "too late" on his apartment wall.

 

Too late spray painted on apartment wall

Resto was charged federally with arson, conspiracy, and civil disorder charges. He was denied bail on account of his danger to the community and clear risk of flight.

Geronimo

Later in his spree of arson and crime Resto started plotting at a more organized structure to carry out acts. He shared this plan with members of his affinity group. The organization would be modeled after ISIS to have a media, finance, propaganda, and intelligence wing with cell groups across all five boroughs on NYC.

Each of the 5 cells groups would leader, safe houses, and carry out different 'direct actions' including arson attacks, statue pullovers, and Minneapolis style "precinct takeovers". The planned initiation process for those involved would be to do what Resto had done, firebomb a police car.

The planned organization had significant time and thought put into it. Resto even took the time to put together network diagrams of organizational structure. Listing out other planned organization rules such as using burner phones, not using real names, and not doing jail support because "revolution requires sacrifices"

 

Planned Geronimo organizational structure

Sentencing

Sam Resto eventually pled guilty on June 24th 2022. On November 4th 2022 he was sentenced. Despite the extreme nature of his offenses, the Government (Eastern District of NY USAO) wanted only 48-72 months, while Resto wanted time served which was roughly 26 months at that point.

The judgment for that sentencing is not public currently. He's not in the BOP lookup, meaning that the sentence he was asking for (time served) appears to have been granted. In addition to this the Eastern District of New York USAO didn't put out any press releases on the case apart from the initial arrest release. No local/national news outlets covered it either.

Update

About a week after we posted about this in a Twitter thread about a judgment was finally filed. We can 100% confirm now he got time served (26 months). He will also do 3 years probation and pay 14k in restitution. There's no indication on why it took 3 months to file a judgment. Typically this done the same day as sentencing, with an occasional 2-3 day delay in some districts.

 

Recently filed judgment