Man who bought 100-round magazine for Dayton mass shooter sentenced to 32 months

Corrections & Clarifications: Ethan Kollie bought the upper receiver for the semiautomatic rifle used by Connor Betts.

CINCINNATI — A man who bought the 100-round magazine and parts for the assault-style rifle used by Connor Betts in last year's mass shooting in Dayton was sentenced Thursday to 32 months in prison.

Prosecutors say Ethan Kollie didn't appear to know about Betts' plans.

But U.S. Attorney David DeVillers said in a statement that "Kollie will forever be connected to the tragic events of Aug. 4, 2019, in Dayton, Ohio."

Kollie, 25, of Kettering, pleaded guilty in November in federal court in Dayton to possession of a gun by a person who uses illegal drugs and lying on a gun-purchasing form.

Five months before the shooting, in March 2019, Kollie ordered for Betts the upper receiver for the rifle and had it shipped to his home. Prosecutors said Kollie helped Betts assemble the rifle, and the two practiced firing it at a Dayton-area shooting range.

Watch: These are the 9 victims of the Dayton, Ohio shooting

Kollie also bought the body armor and the 100-round, double-drum magazine that Betts used with the Anderson Manufacturing AM-15 rifle.

Kollie had the items shipped to his home to "help Betts conceal these items from Betts' parents," prosecutors said in court documents.

Betts, 24, of Bellbrook, was shot and killed by police 32 seconds after the shooting began in Dayton's Oregon District.

Betts killed nine people and wounded more than a dozen. His motives are still unclear, although Chris Hoffman, the FBI special agent in charge of the Cincinnati field office, said the agency's soon-to-be-completed investigation may shed light on that.

In a sentencing memorandum, prosecutors also outlined how Kollie's judgment was affected because he was a regular user of marijuana and psychedelic mushrooms.

Kollie told investigators he smoked marijuana every day “and had done so since he was 14," according to court transcripts. He also said he "microdoses on the mushrooms on a constant basis."

Prosecutors said: "When society needed a responsible, clear-thinking person in the room, it got a regular drug user, with resulting impaired judgment."

Kollie also possessed other guns, including a Micro Draco, 30-round semiautomatic pistol he bought at a shooting range. He lied on a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives form to obtain the gun, checking a box that indicated he was not a drug user.

When officers went to Kollie's home on Aug. 8, 2019, four days after the Dayton shooting, he was carrying a revolver and marijuana. In his home, were drug-related items, including a glass bong and equipment used to grow the mushrooms.

In court documents, Kollie's attorney, Nicholas Gounaris, said prosecutors have ignored the fact that Kollie cooperated fully, helped investigators and even told them about his drug use.

In his 25 years of representing people in federal court, Gounaris wrote that he is "not aware of any federal prosecutions that involve ONLY the aforementioned charges without any other more serious accompanying charges."

Kollie, he said, "made a mistake" by lying on the ATF form and by possessing guns while he used drugs.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Ethan Kollie, who sold Dayton shooter gun parts, gets 32 months