A man who lent the Boston Marathon bombers the gun they used to kill a police officer three days after their initial attack was sentenced to time served on Tuesday after pleading guilty to drug and firearms charges.

U.S. District Judge Mark Wolf sentenced the man, Stephen Silva, who was arrested in July 2014, to time served plus three years of supervised release for the charges, which he pleaded guilty to last year.

Silva was not accused of playing any role in the April 15, 2013, bombing at the Boston Marathon finish line — which killed three people and injured 264 others — but admitted to having possessed a handgun with its serial number filed off.

He testified in March that he lent that gun, a Ruger P95, to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who told him he wanted it to rob college students in Rhode Island.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was found guilty in April of carrying out the bombing attack, along with his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, and of fatally shooting Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer Sean Collier three days later. Tamerlan Tsarnaev died after a gunfight with police later that night.

Stephen Silva's twin brother, Steven Silva, erupted in applause when the sentence was read out and was escorted from the courtroom.

Prosecutors sought an 18-month sentence, citing the defendant's cooperation in the bombing investigation.

Reuters