Antonio Wright, acquitted last fall of a triple murder on St. Paul’s East Side, has been sentenced to 26 years in prison for kidnapping and shooting a man two days earlier in the city’s Dayton’s Bluff neighborhood.

Ramsey County District Judge Kelly Olmstead on Monday granted the prosecution’s request for consecutive sentences, giving Wright 161 months for kidnapping and 153 months for attempted murder. Wright, 42, of Minneapolis, received credit for 488 days already served in custody.

Antonio Dupree Wright (Courtesy of the Minnesota Department of Corrections)

Jurors convicted Wright of the charges last month. Prosecutors argued that Wright shot a 37-year-old man on Sept. 2, 2022, because Wright thought he was going to snitch on him after he heard Wright discussing a 2017 murder.

Wright had waived his right to a jury trial in the triple homicide case, allowing a judge to decide his guilt or innocence. Olmstead, citing insufficient evidence, found him not guilty on Sept. 15.

Attempted murder case

Police called to a shooting in the 1000 block of Wilson Avenue around 11:45 p.m. Sept. 2, 2022, found a 37-year-old man on the front porch of a home with four gunshot wounds to the back and shoulder.

The man, identified as DW, told investigators at Regions Hospital that he knew the shooter as Antonio, or Figg, and considered him a close friend, the criminal complaint said.

DW said he overheard Figg and two other men talking about a 2017 murder. One of the other men with Figg said DW couldn’t be trusted and was going to get them caught. DW said he didn’t like the vibe, so he left.

DW said he later met up with Figg, who asked if he had said “anything about that shit,” referring to the murder, the complaint read. DW told Figg he hadn’t talked about it.

Later, while DW was at a home in the 1000 block of York Avenue, a woman asked him to meet her outside. He did, and Figg “came out of the shadows” and asked him to go with him in his van, the complaint said. He said Figg had his hand in his hoodie and he thought Figg was going to kill him right there.

Once in the van, DW asked Figg what he had done. Figg told DW, “You know what you did,” pulled a black handgun with a clear magazine from his pocket and pressed it to DW’s head, the complaint read. The driver told Figg not to shoot DW in the van.

When the van got to Earl Street and Wilson Avenue, DW jumped out and ran. Figg gave chase and shot at DW five times. DW ducked so he wouldn’t be shot in the head.

After the shooting stopped, DW made his way to the front porch of the home. He saw Figg get back into his van.

Surveillance video from a Speedway store in Brooklyn Center about a half-hour after the shooting showed Wright with a GMC Savana van that DW later told police was Wright’s.

At the time of the shooting, Wright was on Hennepin County probation after being released from prison on a drug case. He had eight prior felony convictions.

Acquitted in separate shooting

The murder charges alleged Wright was the masked man who fired a Glock handgun at five victims on the first floor of an East Side duplex along Case Avenue on Sept. 4, 2022. The three who died were Angelica Gonzales, 33, Cory Freeman, 42, and Maisha Spaulding, 44, all of whom were shot in the head.

A man who was shot twice but survived told investigators the gunman was named Antonio, who goes by the nicknames Figg and D, the charges said. He also picked Wright out of a photo lineup as the shooter.

However, at trial the man backtracked in his trial testimony, saying the shooter had dreadlocks and was not Wright.

Prosecutor Hassan Tahir argued the man’s courtroom testimony was not credible and that it was done for “self-preservation” and out of “concerns about (Wright) coming back to kill him.”

Wright’s defense attorney, Joe Friedberg, argued there was “zero evidence from a forensic standpoint” that incriminated Wright to the killings.

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