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TROY Four Rensselaer County men who wore body armor and carried police batons while walking through the citys peaceful Black Lives Matter protest last June pleaded guilty in City Court to a variety of charges, according to court records.

Shane Fleming of Averill Park and Shelbi Vanderbogart of Poestenkill pleaded guilty Thursday to disorderly conduct, a violation, according to the court files. They were fined $250, given a conditional discharge in which they must not be arrested for one year and surrendered seized weapons.

Shawn Fleming and Nathaniel Shepard, both of Averill Park, pleaded guilty to fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon, a misdemeanor, according to court records. They were also given a conditional discharge, surrendered seizedweapons and were fined $750, .

A fifth man, Noah Latham, who was a soldier in the U.S. Armys 10thMountain Division, still faces a felony charge of second-degree criminal possession of a weapon. That charge carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison if convicted. Police have alleged that Latham was carrying a gun near the protest.

The five men were believed by authorities to have ties to a regional militia group, the New England Minutemen, based on a tactical manual recovered when they were taken into custody by Troy police on June 7.

Troy police recovered rifles, ammunition magazines that hold up to 30 rounds and illegal police batons from vehicles belonging to the suspects on June 7. Lathams handgun was identified by authorities as a ghost gun, which is assembled from parts sold by companies that exploit a loophole in federal and state gun control laws by providing "unfinished" hardware with the drill bits and instructions including video tutorials needed to make a fully functioning firearm. Such weapons are assembled from parts and do not have serial numbers.

Latham was a drone operator based at Fort Drum. At the time of his arrest, he held the rank of specialist E-4. Authorities said Latham was discharged from the Army; they did not know what type of discharge he received. He was released to return to Fort Drum on the condition that he wear a GPS monitoring device under the supervision of the Rensselaer County probation department and was confined to the base.

The five men were at the June 7 demonstration that attracted a crowd of an estimated 11,000 people to downtown Troy. The rally was the largest in the Capital Region among the many racial justice and anti-police brutality demonstrations held across the country following the May 25 death of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, who died after a white Minneapolis police officer kneeled on his neck for nearly 9 minutes.

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Four men arrested at Black Lives Matter protest in Troy plead guilty - Times Union