St. Paul, MN (KROC-AM News) - A Minnesota man who crashed his vehicle into a restaurant in downtown St. Paul last year has been sentenced for his conviction on a federal charge for illegal possession of a machine gun.

The US Attorney for Minnesota says the crash occurred after St. Paul police responded to reports of automatic gunfire coming from a Jeep that was pursuing another Jeep through a densely populated residential neighborhood. The responding officers soon located a black Jeep with the rear window that appeared to have been shot out.

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According to court documents, the Jeep sped away and led officers on a high-speed chase that ended when it collided with another vehicle and then crashed through an unoccupied restaurant in downtown St. Paul. The charges stated that 19-year-old Moesha Isiah Hart and two other people got out of the Jeep and were taken into custody.

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A news release says the keys to the vehicle and to the teenager's home were found in his pocket. Inside the heavily damaged restaurant, St. Paul police officers recovered a loaded Glock 45 9 mm pistol with an inserted high-capacity magazine equipped with a conversion device that turned the semi-automatic weapon into a fully automatic machine gun. Nearly a dozen spent shell casings were located in and around the driver seat of the Jeep.

Bureau of Alcohol-Tobacco-Firearms & Explosives photo
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Court records show Hart entered a guilty plea in March to one count of possession of a machine gun. He was sentenced this week to 39 months in federal prison.

The case was investigated by the St. Paul Police Department, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, and the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

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Gallery Credit: Jessica On The Radio

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