A St. Paul gunman was sentenced this week to just over six years in prison for shooting and critically injuring a man near a downtown light-rail station in January while wanted on warrants and on probation.

William Anthony Maki, 20, was wanted for skipping two sentencing hearings involving violent crimes when he shot the 37-year-old man in the abdomen at close range at Fifth and Cedar streets the afternoon of Jan. 15. He also was on probation out of Hennepin County, court records show.

William Anthony Maki (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)

Police arrested Maki at apartments across the street the same day of the shooting, a motive for which remains unclear.

Officers were sent to the shooting just before 4 p.m. and found the wounded man on the ground breathing and conscious. He said he did not know the shooter, but that he rode the light-rail train. He was taken to Regions Hospital, where he had surgery.

Officers recovered a 9mm casing from the scene.

The man’s girlfriend said they had just gotten off the light-rail train and were crossing the street when he was shot. She said the shooter was six feet away when he fired.

She said she knew the shooter as “Will” and that he was with a woman who lived across the street at Press House Apartments at 345 Cedar St., the criminal complaint says.

Surveillance footage caught the shooting. Additional footage showed the shooter and two women walking from the apartment building and returning 10 minutes later, the complaint says.

Police searched the apartment and arrested the women and suspected shooter, Maki. He appeared to have shaved his hair after the shooting, and acknowledged as much to officers.

Shoes seen on video being worn by the shooter were at the apartment’s door, and a Walther 9mm handgun was found under a chair cushion. The gun had been reported as stolen out of Hennepin County. Clothes like the shooter wore were in a washing machine.

In an interview with investigators, Maki denied he left the apartment with the woman. He was shown a photo of the shooting victim, and said he’d seen him around.

When an investigator said she knew he was the shooter and wanted to know why he did it, Maki “had no explanation and nodded to the door indicating the interview was over,” the complaint says.

The shooting victim picked Maki out of a photo line-up as the gunman while saying, “That’s the (expletive) right there.”

Maki was initially charged Jan. 17 with second-degree assault and two counts of possession of a firearm after conviction of a crime of violence. Three more charges were added to an April amended complaint: attempted murder, first-degree assault causing great bodily harm and theft.

Skipped sentencing hearings

Court records show Maki pleaded guilty to felony threats of violence in Anoka County in October for firing an automatic BB gun at an occupied car, shattering a window and showering the occupants with glass near his then-home in Columbia Heights on Nov. 29, 2022. A plea agreement called for a stayed prison sentence and two years of probation. He was released on his previously posted bond and told to come back for his Jan. 8 sentencing. He did not.

Just over two weeks later, Maki was in a Ramsey County courtroom and pleaded guilty to an August 2023 charge of felony fifth-degree drug possession. He was set to be sentenced to a stay of adjudication and probation at his Jan. 10 sentencing, which he failed to attend.

Court records show Maki was convicted of burglarizing a northeast Minneapolis home in January 2023. Nine months later, a judge stayed a 364-day jail sentence for two years and put him on probation.

In December, Maki was convicted of misdemeanor domestic assault in Anoka County and sentenced to 63 days in jail, time he had already served in custody.

Drug charges dismissed

Maki’s felony threats case remains open in Anoka County.

In March, Ramsey County prosecutors charged Maki with fifth-degree drug possession (methamphetamine) and carrying a BB gun in a public place stemming from a Feb. 21, 2023, incident on a light-rail train in St. Paul.

Eight days after those charges were filed, Maki appeared before a Ramsey County judge for sentencing on the August 2023 drug charge. He was given 364 days in jail, with credit for 162 days already served.

In June, Maki pleaded guilty to the first-degree assault charge for the downtown shooting. A plea deal included dismissing the remaining charges in the case and the two March charges, as well as his understanding that prosecutors would ask for a state guidelines sentence of just over seven years in prison.

Judge David Brown on Tuesday denied a request by Maki’s attorney for a downward departure from the state guidelines and handed down the six-year and one-month prison term. Maki was given credit for 212 days he’d already spent in custody.

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