A 19-year-old St. Paul man has been sentenced to more than three years in federal prison for illegally possessing a machine gun following a drive-by shooting last year that led to a police pursuit and a crash into a downtown restaurant.

Moeshea Isiah Hart (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)

Moeshea Isiah Hart was among three people arrested after he crashed an SUV, which was stolen, into the unoccupied Ox Cart Ale House in Lowertown, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in Minneapolis.

The charges say St. Paul police were called to a report of shots fired in the 300 block of Luella Street, near Interstate 94 and Ruth Street, just before 4:30 p.m. Feb. 15, 2023. The 911 caller said people in a black Jeep were chasing and shooting at occupants of a white Jeep and that the gunfire sounded as if it were from an automatic weapon.

Officers spotted the black Jeep near Third and Ruth streets; the front license plate was missing and the rear window had been shot out. The driver fled. Officers pursued the Jeep on Ruth Street to Minnehaha Avenue, McKnight Road and Interstate 94. When the Jeep exited the freeway at Sixth Street, the police pursuit was terminated for safety reasons, the charges say.

The Jeep continued to flee and eventually ran a red light at Sixth and Wall streets, crashed into another vehicle and then into the Ox Cart Ale House, which was temporarily closed. The driver of the struck vehicle was not injured.

The three suspects then jumped out of the Jeep and tried to flee police on foot before being arrested.

On the floor of the restaurant, near the Jeep’s driver’s side door, officers recovered a loaded Glock Model 45 9-mm pistol with an inserted high-capacity magazine and an attached switch, a conversion device that turns a handgun into a fully automatic machine gun.

Approximately 11 cartridge casings were located in and around the driver’s area of the Jeep, including one on the floor of the restaurant. Police later determined the Jeep had been reported stolen in St. Paul in December 2022.

Hart was initially charged in Ramsey County District Court with motor vehicle theft, fleeing police in a motor vehicle, aiding and abetting drive-by shooting, possession of a machine gun and possession of a firearm without a permit.

Federal prosecutors brought the gun charge against him in August 2023. He pleaded guilty in March, and was given the 39-month prison sentence Thursday in U.S. District Court before Judge Jerry W. Blackwell. The sentence includes two years of supervised release following incarceration.

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