Wisconsin judge sentences man to nearly 20 years in connection with 2016 firebombing incident

FOND DU LAC, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin judge has sentenced a man to almost 20 years in prison in connection with a 2016 firebombing incident.

Online court records show Fond du Lac County Judge Anthony Nehls sentenced 26-year-old Elliot Schneider on Friday to 18 years behind bars on felony counts of being a party to property damage by means of explosive and reckless endangerment. Nehls also sentenced Schneider to three years in prison for bail jumping. That sentence will be served simultaneously with the firebombing sentence.

Schneider recently started a separate 12-year prison sentence after he was convicted of child sexual assault in December. His firebombing and bail jumping time will begin after that sentence ends.

Prosecutors accused Schneider of building a bomb and paying another man to plant it at the Fond du Lac home of a man whom Schneider believed had stolen money from him in a drug deal, WTMJ-TV reported.

The bomb exploded in a mailbox, injuring one person. Assistant District Attorney Catherine Block told Nehls on Friday that the blast sent debris into the home’s living room and started a fire in another room.

Schneider pleaded no contest to the firebombing charges, a legal maneuver in which a defendant doesn’t admit guilt but doesn’t fight charges in order to resolve the case. He told the judge on Friday that he wasn’t involved in the incident in any way. His attorney, Tsz-King Tse, said the incident happened when Schneider was 18 and he was a different person then.