A Dorchester man tossed a semiautomatic handgun on a Dorchester street in February and today discarded a tortured explanation of how his fingerprints came to be found inside it, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley announced.

ANDRE McNEIL (D.O.B. 10/25/89) today pleaded guilty to unlawful possession of a firearm, unlawful possession of ammunition, and unlawfully carrying a loaded firearm in the Gun Priority Disposition Sessions, more commonly known as “Gun Court.”

Boston Municipal Court Judge Roberto Ronquillo, Jr., sentenced McNeil to 18 months in the House of Correction followed by one year of probation. During that year, Ronquillo ordered, McNeil must stay out of Roxbury and either obtain a GED or seek and maintain employment.

McNeil pleaded guilty rather than face trial with the defense that he never carried or possessed the weapon but had been offered the chance to buy it. At that time, he said, he pushed the gun away – offering no explanation for how his prints came to be on the gun’s magazine, which fits inside the hand grip.

Had the case proceeded to trial, Assistant District Attorney Benjamin Goldberger would have introduced evidence and testimony to prove that Boston Police on the evening of Feb. 2 attempted to stop a black Lexus that made an illegal left turn from Mascoma Street onto Fayston Street.

The evidence would have shown that the Lexus sped up as the officers activated the lights and siren of their unmarked vehicle and that McNeil and another man bolted from the vehicle, with McNeil discarding an object while fleeing toward Gaston Street.

The discarded object was soon found to be a .45 caliber Llama Max-II semiautomatic handgun. Also found along McNeil’s path of flight were some black clothing, lip balm, and the back cover of a cellular phone.

Boston Police at the scene charged McNeil with disorderly conduct and the Lexus’s driver with motor vehicle offenses. The second fleeing suspect was not apprehended. After officers seized and documented the firearm, police criminalists undertook a latent fingerprint examination of the weapon and found McNeil’s fingerprints on the magazine.

Armed with that knowledge, Boston Police obtained a warrant for McNeil’s arrest. After taking him into custody, detectives interviewed him and asked how his prints came to be on the weapon.

According to reports that would have been introduced at trial, McNeil said that he was in the Lexus with the gun’s true owner, whose name he did not know. That person offered to sell McNeil the firearm, which McNeil declined by pushing the handgun downward toward the floor, according to his statement.

“That must be why my prints were on the gun,” he told detectives.

McNeil was represented today by attorney Donatos Lallos.