Aug. 19 (UPI) -- A Texas man was sentenced to 6 1/2 years in prison on Friday after he admitted to attempting to blow up a Confederate statue in Houston last year.
Andrew Schneck, 26, pleaded guilty in March to willful attempt to maliciously damage or destroy property in violation of federal law. At the time of his arrest in August 2017, he was on a five-year probation for illegally storing explosives at his parent's home in 2014.
"The high risk conduct of the defendant has now, on two occasions, endangered the public," U.S. District Judge Ewing Werlein Jr. said during the sentencing hearing, The Houston Chronicle reported. "You cannot count always on getting maximum leniency. You have got to reform your conduct."
On August 19, 2017, a park ranger in Houston's Hermann Park spotted Schneck kneeling in the bushes behind a statue of Richard Dowling, an Irish immigrant who fought for the Confederate Army, and trying to plant explosives. The explosives contained nitroglycerin and hexamethylene triperoxide diamine.
Schneck was arrested and has been held in a federal prison in downtown Houston.
In addition to 78 months in prison, Schneck will be required to pay a $10,000 fine.
