A 29-year-old man was arrested Tuesday on a charge related to the firebombing of an anti-abortion office nearly a year ago — all because of DNA evidence found on a discarded burrito.
Hridindu Sankar Roychowdhury, of Madison, Wisc., was arrested Tuesday morning at Boston’s Logan International Airport.
He’s accused of using an incendiary device “to terrorize and intimidate a private organization,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen in a news release.
For the past 10 months, authorities have been looking for the person who tossed a pair of Molotov cocktails into the Wisconsin Family Action office, an anti-abortion political action committee, on May 6, 2022.
Just after 6 a.m. that day, law enforcement responded to an active fire at an office building in Madison.
When police arrived at the scene, they found two mason jars and a disposable lighter. One of the jars was “about half full of a clear fluid that smelled like an accelerant,” according to the criminal complaint.
On the building’s exterior, someone had also spray-painted, “If abortions aren’t safe then you aren’t either.”
The attack happened about a week after a Supreme Court draft opinion that would later overturn Roe v. Wade — the landmark decision that legalized abortion nationwide — was leaked and sparked protests across the country.
Roychowdhury was identified as a possible suspect in March 2023, after law enforcement investigated a separate graffiti incident at the Wisconsin State Capitol.
Investigators in Madison recovered a bag of fast food he’d thrown away in a public trash can, then collected DNA samples from a half-eaten burrito found inside the bag.
DNA from the burrito matched DNA taken from the anti-abortion office.
“The forensic biologist found the two samples matched and likely were the same individual,” the Justice Department said.
Roychowdhury had purchased a one-way ticket from Boston to Guatemala City, Guatemala, departing Tuesday morning. He was arrested at the airport.
If convicted, he faces a mandatory minimum penalty of five years and a maximum of 20 years in prison.
Roychowdhury made an initial appearance in federal court in Boston on Tuesday. A detention hearing was set for Thursday.