By ED WHITE, Associated Press

DETROIT (AP) — A young Chinese scientist interrogated for hours after an international flight to Detroit and held in jail for three months was sentenced to time served Wednesday for illegally shipping biological material to the U.S. that nonetheless wasn’t a threat to the public.

U.S. District Judge Matthew Leitman acknowledged that federal agents have a critical role in stopping “bad actors” from trying to get “bad stuff” into the country. But he also noted that Chengxuan Han, who was headed to a one-year job at a University of Michigan lab, doesn’t appear to fit that category.

“That’s the appropriate balance to strike here,” the judge said in declining to keep Han locked up for another three months as the government had suggested.

Han cried as she spoke to the judge in Mandarin and expressed regret for a “very painful” lesson. She said her career will be “destroyed” when she soon returns to China.

“Government agents are doing their duties here. … I really have no intention to harm anybody and create a security hazard,” Han said through a translator.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Detroit has used unflattering language in promoting the case against Han, even referring to her as an “alien from Wuhan,” a Chinese city that became notorious as the possible source for the global spread of COVID-19.

Han is “not some sort of Chinese operative,” defense attorney Sara Garber said in a court filing, describing her as a “nerdy, kind and polite academic.”

Han, who is in her late 20s, pleaded no contest to smuggling and making false statements. Before her arrival in the U.S., authorities said she made three shipments to someone in Ann Arbor, Michigan, including a book with a hidden envelope that contained filter paper with 28 shapes containing plasmids, which are found naturally in bacteria.

“Hello! This is a fun letter with interesting patterns. I hope you can enjoy the pleasure within it,” Han wrote.

Han was also accused of sending petri dishes that contained nematode worms, known as C. Elegans. Authorities said the packages were not properly labeled and that Han didn’t have approval to ship them.

“C. Elegans is easy to obtain, easy to study, nonharmful,” Garber said.

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She said Han’s research focuses on how organisms detect light, touch and temperature.

“This is not a case of smuggling in some sort of virus or a crop-destroying something or other,” the judge said. “From what I can tell, this material was not a threat at all.”

Han’s case is one of two involving Chinese scientists and the University of Michigan. Yunqing Jian is charged with conspiring with her boyfriend, another scientist from China, to bring a toxic fungus into the U.S. Fusarium graminearum can attack wheat, barley, maize and rice.

It is already found in the East and Upper Midwest, and scientists have been studying it for decades. Jian’s case is pending.

It was noted here at season’s end that if Wild wing Kirill Kaprizov doesn’t want to stay in Minnesota, there is nothing the team can do to keep him here.

We got the first substantial whiff of that on Wednesday, and it didn’t smell good.

According to reporter Frank Seravalli, an NHL insider who contributes to Bleacher Report, Kaprizov has turned down an eight-year contract extension, the league maximum, worth $16 million a year.

Quick summary: Kaprizov and his agent, Paul Theofanous — who is in the Twin Cities this week — just turned down the most lucrative deal in NHL history. So, the Wild didn’t lowball their star left wing, and he didn’t blink.

Yeah, it’s the opening salvo, and it’s assumed general Bill Guerin and team owner Craig Leipold have more in the bank vault they can Hoover into Kaprizov’s bank account, but it’s not a good start for Minnesota’s NHL team. Does Kaprizov — as he has said many times — really want to be here?

Is this a typical negotiation, when you’re immediately offered the biggest contract in your sport’s history and turn it down?

Let’s be honest, as a competitive entity, the Wild have not built a case that they can get Kaprizov’s name on the Stanley Cup. This is important. After finally breaking free from salary cap jail this summer, the team made one real move after free agency opened — trading for forward Vladimir Tarasenko, a Russian compatriot for Kaprizov in the locker room, but unlikely to be the difference for a team that hasn’t won a playoff series since 2015.

Kaprizov spent much of his summer in Russia hiking with friends, miles from cell service, decompressing from a trying season that went from being an early Hart Trophy candidate to missing 41 games with a lower body injury. One imagines him finally getting online at some state forestry compound and finding out that Tarasenko — 11 goals and 33 points in 80 games for Detroit last season — was Guerin’s big addition.

“Ты шутишь, что ли?”

The last thing the Wild wanted was for this to become a public negotiation, and Guerin and Leipold maintained relative radio silence Wednesday. At some point soon, that won’t be possible, and as a veteran of the Marian Gaborik Conflict of 2008, well, just know that it will get ugly if it moves into the regular season.

When the Wild went to Grand Forks, N.D., to train for the 2008-09 season, Gaborik’s agent, Ron Salcer, said his client wanted an extension with the Wild, telling reporters at at Ralph Engelstad Arena, “Marian’s made it clear that’s what he wants me to pursue. Our intentions are sincere.”

Were they?

Gaborik, most of you may remember, was the Wild’s best player before Kaprizov and signed with the New York Rangers as soon as he could, a five-year deal worth $7.5 million a year. That was less than the Wild offered him.

“I knew the deal he signed in New York and knew the deal he could have signed to stay in Minnesota — and I know he took a pay cut to be in New York,” Risebrough told the Pioneer Press in 2021.

At some point, Risebrough had to decide whether to trade Gaborik to at least get something back if he left but never really had a chance. Gaborik’s notoriously finicky groin limited him to 17 regular-season games, and he was out of action at the trade deadline.

Now, with Theofanous in town, this space could soon be filled with different news. But if it isn’t, and the Kaprizov contract extension bleeds into the regular season, it will indicate that the Wild’s leading scorer since he arrived in 2020-21 — 185 goals and 366 points in 319 games — is interested in seeing what he can get from a team he deems closer to winning a Cup or will offer him a richer social life, or warmer weather and lower taxes.

In a sport with a salary cap, it’s difficult to believe Kaprizov will get more than the biggest NHL contract in history from any team but the Wild, especially not one paying all the other good players he would be joining — and that seems to indicate he’s willing to accept less somewhere else.

After free agency opened on July 1, Guerin spoke about improving his 2025-26 team through in-season trades. If he can’t lasso Kaprizov soon — and is it really up to him? — he must try trading Kaprizov before his young superstar officially becomes an unrestricted free agent.

The Wild’s best outcome is a long-term deal with Kaprizov. If that doesn’t happen before the trade deadline, Guerin will be forced to avoid the worst-case scenario of just letting the Wild’s best player walk away.

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Anger and grief mixed with tears in a federal courtroom in St. Paul Wednesday during the sentencing hearing of the woman who illegally bought guns for her boyfriend, which he used to fatally ambush three Burnsville first responders.

Ashley Anne Dyrdahl, 37, was sentenced to three years and nine months in federal prison, followed by two years of supervised release.

Dyrdahl pleaded guilty in January to straw purchasing the two firearms that Shannon Gooden wielded when he killed Officers Matthew Ruge and Paul Elmstrand and Firefighter/Paramedic Adam Finseth on Feb. 18, 2024.

The maximum federal sentence for straw purchasing is 15 years in prison for each charge, and relatives of the victims asked U.S. District Judge Jerry Blackwell to impose the longest sentence he could.

Because Dyrdahl didn’t have a previous history of felony criminal activity, the sentencing guidelines recommended a shorter sentence.

In this case, the guidelines were for a prison term of 2½ years to three years and one month, followed by one to three years of supervised release. The U.S. Attorney’s Office asked for a prison term of 3 years and 5 months and Dyrdahl’s attorney requested a term of 1 year and 1 day in prison.

Photos of Burnsville police officers, from left, Paul Elmstrand, Matthew Ruge and firefighter/paramedic Adam Finseth are displayed during a community vigil Feb. 20, 2024, at the Burnsville Police Department/City Hall. (Mara H. Gottfried / Pioneer Press)

Dyrdahl, who has been out of custody since her arrest last year, was handcuffed in the courtroom and U.S. Marshals took her into custody Wednesday afternoon.

When Dyrdahl purchased the two murder weapons in January 2024, weeks before Gooden fired more than 100 rounds at the first responders, she was “fully aware that Gooden was prohibited from possessing firearms,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing about their sentencing recommendation. “Indeed, she purchased the weapons for Gooden because he could not — the law prohibited him from doing so, for good reason.”

Gooden, 38, had a lifetime ban on possessing firearms because of a felony second-degree assault case, which he pleaded guilty to in 2008.

The incident began when Burnsville police were dispatched to a home in the 12600 block of 33rd Avenue South, which Dyrdahl rented, about 2 a.m. Feb. 18, 2024, on a report of possible child sexual abuse, according to the filing by the U.S. Attorney’s Office about its sentencing recommendation.

Gooden barricaded himself in a bedroom, “effectively taking the children hostage,” the filing said. There were seven children in the home, ages 5 to 15 — three were Gooden’s from a previous relationship, two were Dyrdahl’s, and two were Gooden’s and Dyrdahl’s together.

“After hours of negotiation, Gooden told law enforcement he would come out peacefully; instead, he opened fire,” the court filing continued.

Ruge and Elmstrand were both 27. Finseth was 40. Gooden also shot and wounded Burnsville police Sgt. Adam Medlicott.

Medlicott said in court on Wednesday that he’d been shot twice, it took seven months for him to be able to sleep through the night and he had to explain to his children what happened. “Yet I’m the lucky one,” he said, adding that he lives with a “terrible burden.”

Ashley Anne Dyrdahl in a 2017 booking photo. (Courtesy of the St. Louis Park Police Department)

Prosecutors wrote of Gooden, who died by suicide: “He was violent and dangerous. Dyrdahl knew all too well Gooden’s penchant for erratic violence. By her own admission, Dyrdahl lived in grave fear of Gooden’s volatile and violent behavior. Over the course of just five months in 2024, the defendant gave this dangerous man at least five firearms. She handed him the means to murder, literally placing these combat weapons in his hands.”

It was up to U.S. District Judge Jerry Blackwell to decide Dyrdahl’s sentence, and he was not bound by the sentencing guidelines.

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“Never take their first offer,” is advice commonly handed out by skilled and experienced negotiators. For Minnesota Wild superstar forward Kirill Kaprizov and his agent, that tactic apparently was employed even when the offer in question was the biggest proposed contract in NHL history.

According to a report from NHL insider Frank Seravalli published on the social media platform X, Kaprizov was offered an eight-year contract worth $128 million this week, and he turned down the team’s offer. At an average annual value of $16 million, the offer would have made Kaprizov the highest-paid player in NHL history.

“Sources say #mnwild superstar Kirill Kaprizov’s camp turned down an extension offer believed to be 8-years, $128 million in a meeting on Tuesday in Minnesota that would have made him the highest-paid player in #NHL history in both AAV ($16 million) and total dollars.” Seravalli posted on Wednesday morning, right about the time that a few dozen potential future Wild players were taking the ice for a practice at TRIA Rink.

Kaprizov, 28, is heading into his sixth season with the Wild and the final season of a five-year contract that pays him $9 million annually. If not re-signed, he will become an unrestricted free agent on July 1, 2026.

Wild general manager Bill Guerin was not in attendance at the team’s activities on Wednesday and was unavailable for comment on the report. In a message to the Pioneer Press, Wild majority owner Craig Leipold said, “We are not commenting on this story. Sorry.”

Less than a week earlier, meeting with reporters at Grand Casino Arena, Leipold doubled down on his vow that no team would offer Kaprizov more money or years than the Wild. Leipold said that they were prepared to offer the largest contract in NHL history. He also admitted being anxious to sit down with Kaprizov and his representatives face-to-face to work on a deal.

While Wednesday’s news put some Wild fans into a social media frenzy, one former NHL general manager told the Pioneer Press that this is just the opening salvo, and Kaprizov will likely command something closer to $18 million per season in a long-term contract.

Other options for the Wild include offering a shorter-term contract, or exploring trade offers for Kaprizov, who was limited to 41 of the team’s 82 regular season games last year due to injuries. He had 25 goals and 31 assists for 56 points in the regular season, and led the team offensively with five goals and four assists in their six-game opening round playoff series loss to Vegas.

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