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<h1><font size=4><b>Jurors get 2 views of Texan charged in RNC Molotov
cocktail
case</b></font></h1><font size=3>
<a href="mailto:dhanners@pioneerpress.com?subject=TwinCities.com:%20Jurors%20get%202%20views%20of%20Texan%20charged%20in%20RNC%20Molotov%20cocktail%20case">
By David Hanners <br>
dhanners@pioneerpress.com</a><br>
<a href="http://www.twincities.com/allheadlines/ci_11558536?nclick_check=1" eudora="autourl">
http://www.twincities.com/allheadlines/ci_11558536?nclick_check=1</a><br>
<br>
<br>
Updated: 01/26/2009 07:00:58 PM CST<br><br>
Jurors today got two different views of David Guy McKay, the Texan
accused of turning an apartment building a few feet from St. Paul
Cathedral into a bomb-making factory during last summer's Republican
National Convention. <br><br>
To the prosecution, McKay, 23, was a protester bent on destruction, and
the eight Molotov cocktails he is accused of assembling posed a
"grave risk of serious injury or even death to innocent
people," Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Paulsen told jurors.
<br><br>
But as far as the defense is concerned, McKay is an earnest young man
swayed by the influence of an older activist a man who pushed McKay
towards violence, only to turn out to be a paid FBI informant, said
defense attorney Jeffrey DeGree. <br><br>
"David McKay should be found not guilty because the government went
too far. The word for that is 'entrapment,' " DeGree said in his
opening remarks on the trial's first day. "The government conduct in
this case is appalling. The agent's conduct is appalling." <br><br>
The government, he said, "is more responsible for making these
Molotov cocktails than anybody else." <br><br>
Testimony begins Tuesday. <br><br>
McKay is standing trial on charges that he made and possessed an
unregistered firearm, which is how federal law classifies a Molotov
cocktail. He's also charged with possessing destructive devices that
lacked serial numbers. <br><br>
He was one of two men from Austin, Texas, indicted by the government last
fall in connection with the Molotov cocktails, which were discovered in
the basement of a house in the 200 block of Dayton Avenue, about half a
mile from the Xcel Energy Center, where the convention was held.
<br><br>
Earlier this month, the other defendant, Bradley Neil Crowder, 23,
pleaded guilty to possessing Molotov cocktails. Testifying against McKay
was not a part of the plea bargain he reached with prosecutors, and when
Paulsen read off a list of the witnesses the government intends to call,
Crowder's name was not on it. <br><br>
But prominent on the list was Brandon Darby, a former firebrand
activist-turned-government informant. And in opening statements to nine
women and five men who make up the 12-member jury with two alternates,
both Paulsen and DeGree made it clear that there'd probably be no case
without Darby but they mentioned it for different reasons. <br><br>
Paulsen painted Darby, 32, who now lives in Austin, Texas, as a committed
activist "known in the past for his rhetoric, sometimes
revolutionary rhetoric." But he'd worked undercover for the
government in the past, and so the FBI asked him to infiltrate a
loose-knit group of people in Austin who were planning to come to St.
Paul to protest during the GOP convention the first week of September.
<br><br>
Originally, Darby had agreed only to pass along information. But when
McKay disclosed to him that he had built and planned to use Molotov
cocktails, the FBI asked Darby to wear a "wire" and he agreed
to do so for the first time in the case, Paulsen said. <br><br>
McKay allegedly first planned to use the devices at a checkpoint where
vehicles were inspected before going to the convention center, but then
decided to use them against law enforcement cars in a parking lot,
Paulsen told jurors. <br><br>
"At no time did he encourage or incite Mr. McKay," Paulsen
said. "He does not believe in violence and he doesn't want to see
anybody get hurt." <br><br>
But DeGree said Darby entrapped McKay, and were it not for Darby's
involvement, there'd be no crime. <br><br>
"This is a case of a government informant who took it upon himself
to make things happen," DeGree said as he got up to address jurors.
<br><br>
"Make no mistake about it, ladies and gentlemen: This case is about
Brandon Darby," he said. <br><br>
DeGree described McKay's upbringing the son of a Canadian chef and
model, the subject of a bitter custody dispute, a self-taught graphic
artist and said that when he moved to Austin and got involved in
social-justice issues, he fell under the spell of a charismatic Darby.
<br><br>
Darby, he said, "was a larger-than-life character in Austin,
Texas." Pacing back and forth in back of a podium, DeGree told
jurors that Darby "was a revolutionary his words" and
"an enemy of the U.S. government his words" who even once
went to Venezuela to try to get funding from the government of Hugo
Chavez. <br><br>
But DeGree said McKay and others in the Austin group looked up to Darby,
and the informant egged them on and fanned the flames of violent
activism, even telling them at one point, "You guys look like a
bunch of tofu eaters. You better start eating meat and bulking up."
<br><br>
Although DeGree and McKay's father had hinted in previous interviews that
they intended to raise the issue of entrapment, DeGree made it official
Sunday when he filed a proposed jury instruction to be read before
jurors begin deliberations covering entrapment. <br><br>
He said that if McKay had no intent or disposition to possess a Molotov
cocktail before meeting Darby, and was "induced or persuaded"
by Darby to break the law, then he was entrapped and would have to be
acquitted, DeGree argued. <br><br>
He acknowledged in the proposal that there'd be no entrapment if McKay
had the intent or disposition to build the devices before meeting the
informant, "even though Brandon Darby provided a favorable
opportunity to commit the crime or made committing the crime easier or
even participated in acts essential to the crime." <br><br>
In his opening argument, Paulsen said that after McKay was arrested, he
gave a "full confession" to an FBI agent. <br><br>
"Noticeably absent in that confession is that Brandon Darby or
anybody else influenced him," Paulsen said. <br><br>
David Hanners can be reached at 612-338-6516.<br><br>
<br><br>
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