May 21--A former CTA mechanic was sentenced to 20 months in prison Thursday for selling hundreds of pounds of volatile improvised explosives to an undercover federal agent who said he wanted to bomb the car of a rival drug dealer and blow up an associate's Subway restaurant for insurance money.
John Hegarty, 35, pleaded guilty in February to manufacturing and selling 800 pounds of explosives without a license from August 2012 to May 2014.
When agents with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives raided Hegarty's family's home on Chicago's Northwest Side last June, they found 50 pounds of volatile flash powder stored in the garage, more than 10 times the amount used in each of the improvised pressure-cooker bombs used in the Boston Marathon terrorist attack, prosecutors said.
In handing down the sentence, U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman said it was disturbing that Hegarty seemed willing to sell his homemade "fireworks" to someone claiming to be a convicted felon and wanting to inflict serious damage.
"To sell (illegal) fireworks is bad enough ... but the kinds of explosives you were selling is in another category," Coleman said. "Any terrorist could have come to you and asked for this device and used it for some other purpose."
Before he was sentenced, Hegarty, who had worked as a CTA bus mechanic for 15 years at the time of his arrest, apologized for his actions and asked the judge for "another chance."
"I've never been one for words, but I'm truly grateful that nobody ever got hurt by anything I made," Hegarty said.
He showed no emotion as the judge announced the sentence. In the courtroom gallery, his mother leaned forward and buried her head in her hands.
The ATF launched the investigation in 2012 after an informant told agents that Hegarty had been setting off what appeared to be illegal fireworks at a West Side party, court records show.
In May 2013, the undercover ATF agent, posing as a drug dealer, told Hegarty he planned to blow up a rival's car over a drug debt. Hegarty sold the agent a "bunker buster" bomb he said would destroy the vehicle, and also advised him not to "(expletive) around with the gas tank" because the fumes could ignite the device, court records show.
"If you really want to (expletive) up the guy's car, I could talk to my guy and have longer fuses made, that way you can get the (expletive) outta town," Hegarty said in an undercover recording, according to court records.
Three weeks later, the agent told Hegarty he planned to wire five bunker busters together to "blow up an associate's Subway restaurant franchise for the insurance proceeds," Assistant U.S. Attorney Michelle Nasser wrote in a filing earlier this month.
When told of the plan, Hegarty allegedly replied," Oh yeah, I got you," according to the filing. At that meeting, the agent bought 306 explosive devices from Hegarty for $2,500, prosecutors said.
Over the two-year investigation, Hegarty sold the undercover agent nearly 1,500 explosive devices of various sizes for a total of about $8,000, prosecutors said.
Hegarty's attorney, Sergio Rodriguez, asked the judge for a sentence of home incarceration, saying Hegarty, who has battled alcoholism since he was 14, began making M-80s and other fireworks for friends to "show off in his backyard" and earn some extra money. When the agent started pressing him for more sophisticated and dangerous devices, he didn't consider the consequences, Rodriguez said.
"This isn't the Boston Marathon bombing, and we are fortunate," Rodriguez said.
jmeisner@tribpub.com
