Man who lent handgun to Boston Marathon bomber to be freed

A man who lent the convicted Boston Marathon bomber the gun used to kill a police officer three days after the deadly 2013 attack was set to be released from jail after a judge sentenced him to time served for drug and firearms charges.

US district judge Mark Wolf yesterday sentenced Stephen Silva, who was arrested in July 2014, to time served plus three years’ supervised release for the charges that he pleaded guilty to last year.

Silva was not accused of playing any role in the April 15, 2013, bombing at the Boston Marathon finish line, which killed three people and injured 264, but admitted having possessed a handgun with its serial number filed off.

He testified in March he lent that gun to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who told him he wanted it to rob students in Rhode Island.

Tsarnaev was found guilty in April of carrying out the bombing attack along with his older brother, as well as shooting Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer Sean Collier dead three days later.

Tsarnaev’s older brother, Tamerlan, 26, died following a gunfight with police and it was never established which of the pair pulled the trigger to kill Collier.

“I would like to apologise for the crimes I committed. For he record, I had no idea that the firearm I lent to Mr Tsarnaev would be used in the way it was,” Silva told the judge before his sentence was read.

“I was young, dumb and thought I could outsmart everyone.”

Prosecutors had sought an 18-month sentence, citing the defendant’s co-operation in the probe.

Tsarnaev was sentenced to death by lethal injection and plans to appeal.