Helping a killer hide brings probation

By PAT PHEIFER, Star Tribune

Last update: July 10, 2009 - 8:25 PM

A Bloomington man who helped harbor a fugitive charged with murder won't have to spend any time in jail but will be on probation for three years.

Michael V. Spark, 27, pleaded guilty in May in Ramsey County District Court to aiding an offender to avoid arrest. Spark helped Andre Dupree Davis hide from authorities in early December after he was charged with second-degree murder in the Sept. 7 death of Timothy E. Williams in Little Canada.

Davis, who was apprehended three months after the crime, pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting second-degree murder and received a more than 28-year prison sentence.

At Spark's sentencing hearing, District Judge Michael Fetsch stayed imposition of a prison sentence, sentenced him to three years on supervised probation and ordered him to do 40 hours of community service.

RNC sandbagger gets 90 days

A Milwaukee man accused of tossing a 50-pound sandbag off a freeway overpass during the Republican National Convention last September in St. Paul was sentenced Thursday to 90 days in jail.

David T. Mahoney, 24, pleaded guilty in Ramsey County District Court to second-degree assault. District Judge Paulette Flynn dismissed four other counts of second-degree assault and five counts of terroristic threats at his sentencing hearing.

Authorities said Mahoney was with a group of other protesters when he threw the sandbag from the 5th Street overpass onto Interstate 94, along a route used by buses carrying convention delegates.

The sandbag did not hit any vehicles.

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