This story first appeared in the Valley News on Feb. 18.
BURLINGTON — A Wilder man has been sentenced to 32 months in federal prison after he pleaded guilty last summer to manufacturing explosives at his Perkins Place home, according to federal prosecutors.
William “Will” Hillard, 51, was also ordered to serve a three-year term of supervised release and to pay a $100 special assessment, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Vermont said in a news release.
Hillard earlier pleaded guilty in federal court in Burlington last August to one count of possession of an unregistered explosive device, after having been arrested and charged at his Wilder home the previous April.
U.S. District Judge Christina Reiss recommended that Hillard be incarcerated at the Bureau of Prison’s Federal Medical Center in Devins, Massachusetts, “in the lowest security setting available to him” or, if accommodation is not available at Devins then incarceration “as close to Vermont as possible in the lowest security setting available to him to facilitate re-entry into his community and contact with his family with whom he is bonded,” according to court records.
Hillard, who must serve a three-year term of supervised release, was also ordered to participate in mental health and substance abuse treatment.
A lifetime Hartford-area resident and acclaimed lacrosse player at New England College, Hillard was arrested and charged in April after Hartford police and federal investigators received a tip and descended upon his home where he resided with his mother and found bomb-making materials in addition to firearms which he was prohibited from owning due to prior felony convictions for a similar offense in New Hampshire in the 1990s.
Hillard, who has been incarcerated since April, will receive credit for time served toward his 32-month sentence.
