A career criminal who hurled a lit Molotov cocktail at a Los Angeles hotel where federal agents were staying during immigration-enforcement operations last summer was sentenced this week to five years behind bars.
Eric Anthony Rodriguez, 40, an apparent transient, pleaded guilty in September 2025 to a federal count of possession of an unregistered destructive device. Prosecutors recommended a nine-year prison sentence.
Rodriguez built the Molotov cocktail at about 4 a.m. on June 21, 2025, then walked to his intended target — a large hotel near Los Angeles International Airport, court papers show.
He lit the explosive and threw it toward the entrance.
The device landed in shrubbery, where an employee saw it, ran over and quickly put out the burning wick before it exploded.
A Molotov cocktail is a hand-thrown incendiary weapon consisting of a breakable container filled with flammable substances and equipped with a fuse, typically a glass bottle containing gasoline sealed with a cloth wick.
The hotel was a temporary home to 15 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and a dozen U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers, according to the Justice Department.
“This coward threw a Molotov cocktail at a hotel in Los Angeles where 27 (federal) law-enforcement officers were staying,” Tricia McLaughlin, former spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said at the time. “Thankfully, the attack was unsuccessful, and no one was injured.”
Los Angeles police zeroed in on Rodriguez after obtaining surveillance footage from nearby businesses. He was found asleep near a gas station one block away from the hotel and arrested.
The charge against Rodriguez marks at least the third time a federal “unregistered destructive device” count has been leveled against a person for throwing a Molotov cocktail during last summer’s protests against the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration in Los Angeles.
Rodriguez’s criminal history of felony and misdemeanor convictions spans his entire adult life, prosecutors wrote in sentencing papers.
Among nine separate felony cases, Rodriguez’s convictions include receiving stolen property or forgery, drug offenses, assault with force likely to cause great bodily injury, and second-degree robbery for which he was sentenced to two years in prison.
Less than two weeks after he was released on parole on the robbery case, he built and hurled the Molotov cocktail, prosecutors said.