David Guy McKay, 22, was sentenced today to 48 months in federal prison for making and possessing Molotov cocktails at last year's Republican National Convention in St. Paul.
McKay, who pleaded guilty in March, was indicted for filling eight wine bottles with a mixture of gasoline and motor oil while staying in an apartment not far from St. Paul's Xcel Energy Center, site of the convention.
Austin, Texas residents McKay and Bradley Neal Crowder, 23, had come north to St. Paul in August as part of a group from Texas that intended to disrupt the convention, prosecutors said.
Earlier this month, Crowder was sentenced to two years in prison.
Crowder and McKay's case gained national attention for the FBI's use of an undercover informant, longtime activist Brandon Darby, who participated in early planning meetings by the Texas group and rode north with the men to St. Paul in a rented van.
Darby said he began working with the FBI when the group's plans for the convention turned violent. McKay insisted at his trial that Darby had entrapped him into making the explosives.
That claim helped end McKay's first trial with a hung jury. McKay dropped that claim and pleaded guilty at the beginning of jury selection for his second trial, after it became clear that prosecutors were going to call Crowder to testify. It was believed that Crowder's testimony would contradict McKay's version of events.
Molotov cocktail maker gets four years in prison |