Twin Cities man sentenced to nearly 7 years in federal prison for automatic weapon buy

Nick Ferraro, Pioneer Press
·5 min read
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A Twin Cities man who told an FBI informant he was stockpiling weapons to use against police was sentenced to nearly seven years in federal prison Tuesday after pleading guilty to buying devices that convert firearms to fully automatic weapons.

Senior U.S. District Judge David Doty on Tuesday sentenced River William Smith, 21, of Savage, to 80 months in prison and three years of supervised release. He pleaded guilty in May to buying the gun parts and faced a maximum 120-month prison term. He was held at Sherburne County jail since his December 2022 arrest.

Smith told an FBI informant in text messages he was “preparing for a violent exchange with police and that he maintains an intense dislike of minorities, Jewish individuals and homosexuals,” court documents say. Smith said he wanted to join a neo-Nazi paramilitary group; sympathized with the shooter who killed 17 people at a high school in Parkland, Fla., in 2018; and called the person who killed five people at a gay nightclub in Colorado in 2022 a “hero.”

FBI agents arrested Smith at a convenience store parking lot, where he paid an informant $690 for three hand grenades and four auto sears, or “switches,” which convert semiautomatic firearms to fully automatic weapons. He wore a soft armor ballistic vest and carried a loaded semi-automatic pistol with a round chambered and multiple loaded pistol magazines in his waistband.

FBI agents found in his Jeep over 900 rounds of ammunition loaded into 11 different magazines. In the back seat was an uncased AR-style assault rifle with a scope, a tactical helmet with goggles, holster, battle belt, hard armor ballistic plates and a vest holding six fully loaded rifle magazines.

“When the defendant says that he does not believe in gun restrictions of any kind, that he is pro-mass shooting and that he likes seeing people get shot, he should be believed,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Winter said in a recent court filing in which he asked the judge to impose the maximum sentence.

Defense attorney Jordan Kushner painted a much different picture of Smith. At the time of his arrest, Kushner said in a recent court filing, Smith’s life interests consisted of playing video games, browsing the internet and going to a shooting range.

“His biting bait from an FBI information to purchase auto sears does not make him a menace to society,” he said. Smith’s ideologies, his “interests and fantasies” and the “fact that he does not like the government are inappropriate considerations for sentencing,” he added. Kushner noted how Smith did not have a previous conviction as an adult.

Smith does have a juvenile record stemming from a December 2019 incident when, at age 17, he fired multiple rounds from an AK-47-style assault rifle inside his grandparent’s home in Savage, where he lived. His grandmother suffered a minor hand injury. Officers seized two pistols, multiple loaded magazines, a 12-guage shotgun, a loaded .22-caliber rifle, tactical gear, a drum magazine, ammunition and gun parts from the home, according to court records.

Smith pleaded guilty to a felony charge of discharge of a firearm endangering the safety of another. He was adjudicated delinquent and placed on probation until his 19th birthday, during which time he was prohibited from possessing any firearms.

‘Pro mass shooting’

According to the federal criminal complaint, a retired police officer working at a local gun range contacted the FBI in September 2022 to report “troubling behavior” by Smith. Wearing a bulletproof vest, Smith lay on the ground and shot under and around a plywood barricade he had set up, all while conducting rapid reload drills with his semiautomatic handgun. The witness estimated that Smith had fired 300 rounds of ammunition in 20 minutes.

In response, the FBI began surveillance of Smith and captured an image of him conducting shooting drills while wearing a “Punisher” skull mask. The mask is popular among right-wing extremists and was worn by the shooter who killed 25 people at a Texas church in 2017.

Two FBI informants began communicating with Smith. One informant who was shooting next to Smith at a gun club range in November 2022 asked about his aggressive shooting style. Smith was recorded telling the informant that he was “preparing himself to fight the police – and that he was dedicated to dying in that fight,” the complaint says.

Smith also spoke of mass shootings during a November 2022 text exchange with an informant, stating, “I’m pro mass shooting in general.”

At a second meeting at the gun range that same month, Smith told the informant he wanted an “auto sear” to convert his AR-style assault rifle into a machine gun. When the informant told him the device would cost about $120, Smith handed over a down payment. Later that day, he reached out to the informant and asked if he also could get a conversion device for a Glock handgun.

Smith soon sought to add hand grenades to his arsenal. In a recorded conversation, Smith brought up “frag grenades” and asked the informant if “that somethin’ you could possibly get, or no?” In a December 2022 meeting, Smith agreed to pay $250 each for three hand grenades, and in doing so, asked whether they would be “live.” When Smith was told they would be live, he replied, “Oh, (expletive) yeah” and gave the informant a $200 down payment.

Guns found in home

After his arrest, agents recovered six more guns and ammunition at Smith’s home, where he lived with his grandparents.

In an interview with FBI agents, when asked why he wanted auto sears and hand grenades, he said he was having a hard time thinking and that he needed a cigarette. Later in the interview, he would claim they were going to be “range toys.”

In his first jail call after his arrest, Smith expressed disappointment that he had not engaged agents in a firefight, according to prosecutors. He recalled the moment FBI agents moved in to arrest him — after he took possession of the auto sears and inert hand grenades — and told a family member “[m]aybe I should’ve … I didn’t even have an option to do anything bad.”

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