CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — A Ku Klux Klan member from Maryland who pleaded no contest to firing a gun at a white nationalist rally last summer in Virginia has been sentenced to four years in prison.
Charlottesville Circuit Court records show Richard Preston was sentenced Tuesday to eight years, with four of those years suspended.
Prosecutors said Preston fired a handgun once toward the ground while standing on a sidewalk crowded with rally-goers and counterprotesters after initially pointing the gun at a black man with an improvised flamethrower. No one was struck.
His charge, discharging a firearm within 1,000 feet (300 meters) of a school, carried a penalty of between two and 10 years in prison.
Preston has spoken out publicly as an imperial wizard of the KKK.
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