Man sentenced to nearly 20 years in prison for firebomb incident

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

Online court records show that Fond du Lac County Judge Anthony Nehls on Friday sentenced Elliot Schneider, 26, to 18 years in prison on a felony charge of participating in property damage by means of explosive endangerment and reckless. Nehls also sentenced Schneider to three years in prison for bail jumping. This sentence will be served concurrently with the sentence for the firebombing.

Schneider recently began a separate 12-year prison sentence after being convicted of sexual assault of a child in December. His time of firebombing and bail jumping will begin after this sentence ends.

Prosecutors accused Schneider of making a bomb and paying another man to plant it at the Fond du Lac home of a man who Schneider said stole money from him as part of a drug trafficking, WTMJ-TV reported.

The bomb exploded in a mailbox, injuring one person. Assistant District Attorney Catherine Block told Nehls Friday that the explosion 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 does not admit guilt but does not fight the charges in order to resolve the case. He told the judge Friday that he was in no way involved in the incident. His lawyer, Tsz-King Tse, said the incident happened when Schneider was 18 and he was a different person then.