St. Paul restaurant crash leads to machine gun possession guilty plea

ST. PAUL, Minn. (FOX 9) - A man pleaded guilty to illegally possessing a machine gun after a February 2023 shooting that led to a police chase that ended with a crash into a restaurant in St. Paul. 

Nineteen-year-old Moeshea Isiah Hart of St. Paul, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to possession of a machine gun. 

The charges stem from an incident on Feb. 15, 2023, when St. Paul police officers responded to reports of automatic gunfire in the area of Luella Street North and Wilson Avenue. 

Witnesses calling 911 said they heard the shots coming from a black Jeep that was westbound on Wilson Avenue and that it appeared to be chasing another Jeep, according to a press release from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). 

Arriving officers then found a black Jeep near the area with a rear window that appeared to be "shot up", the DOJ said. 

When police tried to follow the Jeep, the driver then led officers on a high-speed chase that ended when the Jeep struck another vehicle and crashed through the Ox Cart Ale House restaurant in downtown St. Paul, according to court documents. 

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The criminal complaint says the driver continued to flee by "ramming the Jeep through the business" and three people, including a 17-year-old, an 18-year-old and Hart, then got out of the Jeep and ran away before they were detained. 

The restaurant was unoccupied at the time.

The DOJ said that police then recovered a loaded Glock Model 45 9mm pistol with a high-capacity magazine and an attached switch, described as a conversion device that turns the weapon into a fully automatic machine gun. 

The gun was reportedly found on the floor of the restaurant near the Jeep’s driver’s side door, along with 11 discharged cartridge casings in and around the driver’s area of the Jeep. 

Police say they later found the Jeep had been reported stolen from St. Paul in December 2022. 

Hart will be sentenced at a later date, the DOJ said.