Man Pleads Guilty to 2 Felony Charges for Helping Columbine Shooters Get Gun
A man pleaded guilty Monday to helping Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold get one of the guns they used in the Columbine High School massacre.
Philip Joseph Duran, 23, pleaded guilty to two of three felony charges and faces up to nine years in prison at his sentencing, scheduled for June 23.
Prosecutor Steve Jensen said in reaching a plea agreement with Duran that he dismissed a charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. He declined to discuss what kind of sentence he would recommend.
Duran worked in a pizza shop with Klebold and Harris and introduced them to gun seller Mark Manes at a gun show three months before the April 20, 1999, attack. Manes pleaded guilty and received a six-year prison term in November for providing a TEC-DC9 handgun to Klebold and Harris.
Duran pleaded guilty to providing a handgun to a juvenile--the TEC-DC9 the gunmen obtained from Manes--and illegally possessing a sawed-off shotgun during target practice with Klebold and Harris. The two students later killed 12 students and a teacher before turning their guns on themselves at their high school.
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