Guilty Plea In The Trial Of Texans Involved In GOP Convention Protests

Photo by Zack Akukumba

We've written before about the tangled set of circumstances revolving around Brandon Darby, a Pasadena native who was an FBI informant on a group staging protests at last year's GOP convention.

Darby Darby has become a villain to the left. He was a key piece of the case against Austin activists David McCay and Bradley Crowder; Crowder pleaded guilty earlier this year to possessing a Molotov cocktail. McCay's trial ended in a hung jury/mistrial last month.

His retrial was scheduled for this week, but McCay has now entered his own guilty plea.

McCay admitted guilt to three counts of making and possessing a Molotov cocktail; more importantly, he said he would have done the actions whether or not he knew Darby, who's been accused of aggressively talking McCay into violent acts.
"I think we would've done it anyways," he told the court, according to the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

The paper reported:

Chief U.S. District Judge Michael Davis accepted the plea bargain and said that since the conviction involved a violent crime, he had no choice but to order McKay taken into custody. He had been free on bond following his mistrial.

The hearing came just hours after McKay's aborted attempt to enter a guilty plea the day before. In that hearing before Davis, McKay said that while he wanted to take responsibility for what he did, the government informant, Brandon Darby, had a role in those actions.

Davis refused to accept the plea and adjourned the hearing until today to give McKay and his attorney time to either decide to accept the government's offer of a plea bargain or get ready to start picking the jury for his re-trial.

With a night to think about it, McKay decided to tell the judge that Darby played no role in the decision to make the Molotov cocktails during the Republican National Convention in St. Paul last summer.

No date has been set for sentencing.