Man apologizes for loaning gun to Boston bombers

A Massachusetts man apologized Tuesday for loaning the Boston Marathon bombers a gun they used to kill a police officer and was sentenced to time served on drug and weapon charges.

Stephen Silva, 22, was not charged in connection with the 2013 bombing that killed three people and left more than 200 wounded. Three days later, while on the run, Dzhokar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev used Silva's gun to kill Massachusetts Institute of Technology Police Officer Sean Collier.

"I had no idea that the firearm I lent to Mr. Tsarnaev would be used in the way it was," Silva told a federal judge in Boston at a sentencing hearing, according to Reuters. "I was young, dumb and thought I could outsmart everyone."

Silva had been in custody since his arrest in July 2014. He could have been sentenced to several more years in prison after pleading guilty to heroine distribution and conspiracy charges, plus one charge of possessing a handgun with altered serial numbers.

Prosecutors had supported leniency, citing his helpful testimony regarding the gun in Dzhokar Tsarnaev's trial. Tsarnaev was convicted of murder and other charges in April and later sentenced to death. Appeals are pending.

Silva, a friend of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev dating back to high school, told authorities Tsarnaev told him the gun would be used for a robbery in Rhode Island. He said he had no knowledge of the brothers' bombing plans. Silva was never charged in connection with the bombing.

The Tsarnaev brothers set off two explosions near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013. The brothers fled, setting off a massive manhunt. Collier was killed on April 18, and Tamerlan, 26, was killed in a shootout with police early the next morning. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, now 22, was found wounded and hiding in a boat in a backyard in Watertown, Mass., that evening.