A St. Paul man has admitted to a weapons charge in connection with his involvement in a shooting last year that led to a police chase and crash of a stolen SUV into an empty restaurant.
Moeshea I. Hart,19, pleaded guilty Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis to illegal possession of a handgun outfitted to be fired like a machine gun. The rolling mayhem included gunfire and one SUV driver chasing another until the restaurant got in the way.
Hart remains jailed without bail ahead of sentencing, which has yet to be scheduled. According to the plea agreement, federal guidelines call for Hart to receive a prison term ranging from slightly more than three years to just shy of four years. However, federal judges have full discretion when sentencing defendants and are not bound by the guidelines calculation.
According to the guilty plea and related court documents:
A 911 call reporting shots fired at about 4:30 p.m. on Feb. 15, 2023, sent police to N. Luella Street and Wilson Avenue in the Conway neighborhood of St. Paul. Witnesses there told officers they heard automatic gunfire coming from a black Jeep chasing a white Jeep on westbound Wilson.
A few blocks away, officers located a black Jeep with a rear window that appeared to have been shot out. When officers turned around in their squad car to pursue the Jeep, the driver sped away. The pursuit continued onto Interstate 94, but officers stopped chasing for safety reasons when the driver exited at E. 6th Street.
The black Jeep, driven by Hart, then ran a red light, hit another vehicle 4 miles from the shooting scene and finally crashed through the Ox Cart Ale House at the corner of E. 6th and Wall streets.
Police arrested Hart and found on the floor of the empty restaurant a loaded 9-millimeter pistol with a high-capacity magazine inserted and equipped with a switch, a device that turns a handgun into a fully automatic machine gun.
About 11 9mm discharged cartridge casings were spotted in and around the driver's area of the Jeep, including one outside the vehicle on the restaurant floor.
Police determined that the Jeep, with a license plate not registered to the vehicle, had been reported stolen from St. Paul about two months earlier.
