AKRON, Ohio — U.S. District Judge David Dowd Jr. offered an anecdotal tale Tuesday to explain why he rejected prison terms of 19 to 30 years for three men who had tried to blow up a bridge over the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

The 83-year-old judge recalled that as an assistant Stark County prosecutor in the 1960s he helped convict a man of killing his wife and father-in-law. The double killer, he said, served less time — 18 years — than the terms that prosecutors recommended for the would-be bombers who killed no one.

"It doesn’t make any sense whatsoever," Dowd said in an interview after the sentencing hearings in U.S. District Court. He described the tougher sentences recommend by prosecutors as "grotesque."

During the hearing, Dowd sentenced the leader of the group, Douglas Wright, 27, of Indianapolis, to 11½ years in prison; Brandon Baxter, 21, of Lakewood, to nine years and nine months; and Connor Stevens, 21, of Berea, to eight years. Prosecutors had sought 30 years for Wright, 25 years for Baxter and 19 years for Stevens.

Dowd will sentence a fourth conspirator, Anthony Hayne, 35, of Cleveland, today. A fifth defendant, Joshua Stafford, 23, of Cleveland, is being screened to determine his mental competency.

U.S. Attorney Steven Dettelbach declined Tuesday to criticize Dowd's sentences and said the recommendations made by his prosecutors conformed with federal sentencing guidelines for terrorists.

"These defendants were found to have engaged in terrorist activities and will spend nearly a decade in prison," Dettelbach said. "These sentences should send a message that when individuals decide to endanger the safety of our community, they will be held to account."

The FBI scuttled the plot that targeted the Ohio 82 bridge connecting Brecksville and Sagamore Hills Township by infiltrating the cabal with a paid informant and by providing the conspirators with phony plastic explosives.

Agents arrested the five members of the Occupy Cleveland movement on April 30 as they tried to detonate the fake explosives by dialing a code into a cell phone. The men later confessed to the plot, though defense lawyers tried to portray them as misguided pranksters led astray by the FBI informant.

Defense lawyers also hired a military demolition expert, who reported that the men had grossly underestimated the amount of explosives needed to topple the bridge. As a result, the expert concluded, the plot would have failed even if the men had used real explosives.

But Assistant U.S. Attorneys Duncan Brown and Justin Herdman argued that the defendants’ intentions should have been the basis for Dowd’s sentences, not their failure to blow up the bridge.

They asked the judge to apply strict terrorism sentencing guidelines, noting that the men had hoped to trigger a civil war among protesters gathered in Chicago for the G8/NATO summit in May.

Dowd indicated in pre-sentencing documents that he would consider the lack of firepower used by the would-be terrorists in determining his punishment. He also agreed with defense claims that the confidential informant manipulated the bridge-bombing plot, but declined to accuse the unidentified man of entrapment.

On Tuesday, all three men expressed remorse and apologized for their crimes. They promised to improve their lives, to attend educational and job-training classes, and to receive substance abuse counseling while in prison.

"Every day of my life I am filled with sorrow for the foolish act that brought me here," Stevens told the judge. "This was the worst decision of my life. I intend to live the rest of my life in quiet peace among family and friends."

Stephen Anthony, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Cleveland office, offered a different take on the three men in a statement released after the sentencing.

"In a calculated fashion, these three defendants identified a viable target, purchased what they believed to be military grade explosives and attached those explosives to that target," Anthony said. "Not until they were safely miles away enjoying a meal did they casually attempt to remotely detonate the device believing they were causing significant damage to the bridge, all in the hopes of furthering their ideological views."

But Dowd said he was inclined to believe the defendants’ sincerity, and privately said he expected the defendants would emerge from prison as better people — especially Stevens.

"His was the best allocution I ever heard," the judge said. "I have a hunch that kid is going to turn out okay."