BURLINGTON – More than two years after authorities allege that a former California man set a fire outside the Burlington office of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a federal judge ordered Monday that he remain in custody while issues regarding his competency to stand trial play out.
Judge William K. Sessions III last year found Shant Michael Soghomonian incompetent to stand trial and called for him to receive care and treatment to determine whether “he will attain capacity to permit the proceeding to go forward.”
At a hearing Monday in federal court in Burlington, the judge ordered Soghomonian to remain in custody while the federal Bureau of Prisons completes a report. The report should include information about the treatment process to “restore” Soghomonian’s competency to stand trial and any need for “coerced” medication, the judge said.
The judge termed the issues surrounding forcing someone to use “anti-psychotic medication” serious and complex. Sessions called on the prosecutor as well as Soghomonian’s defense to file their own briefs after the Bureau of Prisons completes its report.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Lasher, the prosecutor, told the judge during Monday’s hearing that the government was still pressing the case against Soghomonian due to the nature of the allegations.
Soghomonian, Lasher said, “seemed to have targeted a sitting U.S. senator.”
Lasher estimated that if Soghomonian is convicted, the prosecution could seek the maximum penalty for the offense: 20 years behind bars.
Soghomonian pleaded not guilty shortly after his arrest in April 2024 to a federal charge alleging he “maliciously damaged, and attempted to damage and destroy” the Church Street building.
Emily Kenyon, Soghomonian’s attorney, said during the hearing that there was no clear evidence that Soghomonian had “targeted” Sanders. “I don’t think we can draw that conclusion,” Kenyon said.
Kenyon also said that there was “nothing in the record” indicating that Soghomonian’s competency could be restored through forcing him to take any medication.
Soghomonian, formerly of California, is accused of setting fire to the entryway leading to Sanders’ office in a historic downtown Church Street building on April 5, 2024.
According to police, security footage showed Soghomonian “spraying a liquid near the outer door” and then “lighting the area with a handheld lighter.”
Sanders was not in the office at the time. None of his seven staffers who were in the building were injured, though the building, which housed other businesses, sustained water damage, according to court records.
The records also stated that the door leading to the senator’s office was heavily charred.
Soghomonian, according to authorities, had been renting rooms in hotels around Chittenden County in the days leading up to the fire.
Sessions, in finding Soghomonian incompetent to stand trial last year, wrote that Soghomonian made statements during an earlier hearing that defense attorneys as well as prosecutors were “suppressing the truth” and that officials were covering up terror from the government.
“He is too suspicious of the legal proceedings and his own defense counsel to assist properly in his own defense,” Sessions wrote.
Soghomonian, 37, has been in custody since his arrest two days after the incident. He is currently incarcerated at the Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans, according to the state Department of Corrections website.
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