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A St. Paul man was sentenced to more than two years in prison Friday for burglarizing a mosque in the city’s Frogtown neighborhood with an alleged accomplice in February.
Jeremy Allen Glass, 33, and Christopher Edward Hughes, 35, made off with a safe that contained $4,000 from Masjid Al-Ihsan Islamic Center at Minnehaha Avenue and Chatsworth Street on Feb. 27, criminal complaints say.
Glass appeared at his sentencing hearing via Zoom from the Minnesota Correctional Facility-Faribault, where he is serving 18 months in connection with two convictions earlier this year.
Ramsey County District Judge Nicole Starr followed an August plea agreement, convicting Glass of second-degree burglary of a religious institution and sentencing him to a 27-month prison term, which will coincide with his other prison time. Two other charges were dismissed — aiding and abetting auto theft and attempted theft — and he was given credit for 235 days already served in custody.
Hughes, also of St. Paul, was charged with the same three crimes. His case is pending.
In the days that followed the burglary, the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Minnesota chapter spoke out against the crime and asked for the public’s help in identifying the suspects, who were caught on video surveillance. Police said they received tips from people who identified the suspects as Glass and Hughes.
According to the criminal complaints:
Security footage showed that someone pulled up to the building in a black Chevy Silverado — which had been stolen Feb. 25 — shortly after midnight and two men walked up to the front door. One of the men, later identified as Glass, used a key to unlock the door and was followed by a man identified as Hughes. The two men loaded the safe into the rear passenger side of the Silverado.
The pair also stole a credit card machine from the mosque and tried to transfer nearly $14,000 from the mosque’s bank account.
Video showed they returned to the mosque about 3 a.m. and Hughes used a stolen key fob to steal a van in the parking lot.
Once arrested, Hughes told police that Glass had picked him up in the Silverado and asked him to help with a maintenance job at the mosque. When an investigator asked where they got the key to get inside, Hughes said Glass went through cars at the mosque the day before and found it. Glass declined to talk with investigators.
In March, Glass was sentenced to 18 months in prison after pleading guilty to drug possession in Sherburne County. He was given a 13-month sentence on a receiving stolen property conviction in July in Washington County.
His other past felony convictions include first-degree aggravated robbery in 2011, driving while impaired in 2015 and possession of methamphetamine in 2015.
Hughes was charged with receiving stolen property in Ramsey County in February; a plea hearing is scheduled for next month. He has past felony convictions for drug possession in 2007 and auto theft in 2008.
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