Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives

PORTLAND, Ore. – Yesterday, U.S. District Judge Marco A. Hernandez sentenced Sergey Yefimovich Turzhanskiy, 26, to 30 months in federal prison for possession of an unregistered destructive device. Turshanskiy pleaded guilty to using the device, a Molotov cocktail, in a 2012 attack on a Portland Police Bureau (PPB) patrol car.

Turzhanskiy entered PPB’s North Precinct parking lot at 449 North Emerson Street at about 1:30 am on November 5, 2012. He ignited the Molotov cocktail (a glass beer bottle with fuel and a cloth wick), and hurled it at a parked patrol car. The device bounced off the hood of the car onto the ground and initially failed to break. Turzhanskiy picked up the device and threw it a second time at the vehicle. It hit the pavement, broke and caused a fire next to the car. Turzhanskiy fled on a bicycle but was apprehended by the police a few blocks away.

A native of Ukraine, Turzhanskiy immigrated to the United States as a child, became a U.S. citizen, and grew up in Chicago, Illinois. He had lived in Portland a short time when the crime occurred.

After serving the prison sentence, Turzhanskiy will be on supervised release for three years. In light of Turzhanskiy’s prior associations, Judge Hernandez ordered as a special condition of supervised release that he "shall have no communication or contact with anarchist groups or affiliates" in the future. He has already paid $1,314.12 in restitution to the City of Portland for damage to the patrol car.

"We are pleased with the sentence imposed by Judge Hernandez," stated United States Attorney Amanda Marshall. "Violent attacks such as this one on law enforcement deserve substantial punishment as a deterrent to similar conduct by others."

In addition to the Portland Police Bureau, investigative work in the case was performed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen F. Peifer.

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