A sentencing hearing was postponed Wednesday until March 18 for a career criminal who hurled a lit Molotov cocktail at a Los Angeles hotel where federal agents were staying during immigration enforcement operations over the summer.
Eric Anthony Rodriguez, 40, an apparent transient, pleaded guilty in September 2025 to a federal count of possession of an unregistered destructive device. Prosecutors are recommending a nine-year prison sentence.
According to court papers, Rodriguez built a 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.
When arriving at the hotel, he lit the Molotov cocktail and threw it toward the entrance. The device landed in shrubbery, where an employee saw it, ran over and quickly put out the still-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 filled with flammable liquids sealed with a cloth wick.
The hotel was home to 15 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and a dozen U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents who were staying there during illegal immigration enforcement operations in Los Angeles, 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.”
The Los Angeles Police Department zeroed in on Rodriguez after obtaining surveillance footage from nearby businesses. The defendant was arrested hours later after he was found asleep near a gas station one block away from the hotel, authorities said.
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 year’s immigration enforcement protests in Los Angeles.
Rodriguez’s criminal history of felony and misdemeanor convictions spans his entire adult life, prosecutors wrote in sentencing papers filed in Los Angeles federal court.
Among nine separate felony cases, Rodriguez’s convictions range from receiving stolen property or forgery, multiple 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 to parole on the robbery case, he built and hurled the Molotov cocktail, prosecutors said.