This time around, Michael David Henderson's hands were shackled as the guilty verdict was read, with five Hennepin County sheriff's deputies hovering nearby and more stationed outside the courtroom.
Authorities weren't taken any chances after Henderson, 25, escaped from a 16th-floor courtroom during a similar proceeding last month while awaiting a verdict in an attempted murder case.
The brazen escape, during which he eluded three court officers before slipping out of a fire exit — all in two minutes and 36 seconds, according to prosecutors — prompted authorities to review security protocols at the county government center in downtown Minneapolis.
On Friday, Henderson was back before district court Judge William Koch, from whose courtroom he fled on Sept. 19
"I authorized you to be in shackles given your behavior last time," Koch told him, according to a news release. "I don't expect anything to go wrong and nothing will go wrong."
The judge sentenced him to 201 months in prison, a lighter sentence than the 237 weeks being sought by assistant Hennepin County attorney Deborah Russell, after Henderson was found guilty of pointing a gun at three of his former Sam's Club co-workers. But the gun jammed when Henderson pulled the trigger, prosecutors said.
A jury acquitted Henderson of two counts, but convicted him of attempted murder, second-degree assault and aggravated robbery in the March 25 robbery, according to authorities. In arguing for less prison time, Henderson's attorney said his client was a college student who had studied abroad, but whose life had become unraveled by his drug habit, according to a news release.
Reading from a statement, Henderson apologized to the victims and to his family, but insisted that he had only pulled the trigger after pointing the gun away from his co-workers, the release said.
