Justin Dozier
Courtesy of Washtenaw County Jail
A suspended University of Michigan wrestler pleaded guilty Wednesday to making Molotov cocktails after the NCAA national championship basketball game in April, court records indicate.
Justin Dozier, 20, pleaded guilty to two counts of explosives: possessing/manufacturing Molotov cocktails under the Holmes Youthful Trainee Act, which allows a judge to place a youth between 17 and 20 in prison or on probation without a conviction to avoid a criminal record.
Dozier and fellow U-M wrestler Rosario Bruno were charged in May with making Molotov cocktails the night the basketball team lost the national championship game to the University of Louisville.
According to Ann Arbor police, Dozier and Bruno made them in the early hours of April 9. The Molotov cocktails were found in the 1100 block of White Street, the scene of at least two fires after the loss.
Police arrived at the scene of a mattress fire in the 1100 block of White, extinguished it and then found a bottle with a flammable liquid inside. Police said they linked Dozier and Bruno to up to four bottles made that way, AnnArbor.com previously has reported.
Dozier’s address is listed in the block where the bottles were found and Bruno was taken to the hospital by Huron Valley Ambulance from a home on that block the same night.
Both men were indefinitely suspended from the U-M wrestling team when the charges were brought.
Bruno is set to appear in front of Judge Archie Brown July 17 for a pretrial hearing. Dozier is scheduled for sentencing on Aug. 14.
They remain free on personal recognizance bonds.