SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — A part-time fry cook and would-be terrorist admitted plotting to blow up a federal courthouse in the Illinois capital city and was sentenced Monday to 28 years in prison.
Michael Finton, 31, pleaded guilty to one count of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction against a federal building in downtown Springfield in September 2009. The blast also was supposed to destroy the nearby office of U.S. Rep. Aaron Schock.
Although Finton thought he was planning the attack with a member of al-Qaida, he was actually talking to an undercover government agent.