More than 21 months after former De Anza College student Al Joseph DeGuzman was arrested, Santa Clara County Judge Robert Ahern handed him a sentence of seven years in prison.

With time off for good behavior and credit for time already served, DeGuzman, who was found guilty last April on 108 felony bomb charges, may be out in two years.

All but two of the 108 counts were thrown out after Ahern discovered in July a pair of appellate decisions suggesting DeGuzman should not have been charged for each of the 54 bombs found during the execution of a search warrant by police.

Prosecutors say they may appeal the ruling.

The sentence DeGuzman received is considerably less than the maximum penalty of 99 years he faced when he was convicted.

DeGuzman’s plan, a Columbine-style attack on De Anza, was thwarted on Jan. 29, 2001, when two San Jose Long’s Drugstore clerks, Kelly Bennett and Michelle Houde, found photographs of the 20-year-old posing with various weapons and called police.

For each of the 57 bombs police found in his room on the morning after the photographs were discovered, DeGuzman was originally charged with possession of of a destructive device and possession with the intent to injure persons or personal property.

DeGuzman was also charged with two counts of possessing illegal firearms.

Of these initial bomb charges, DeGuzman was found not guilty of the twin counts of possession of a destructive device and intent to injure for three of the devices.

According to prosecutor Thomas Farris, these devices, Molotov cocktails without wicks, do not qualify as destructive devices.

Because of a clerical error which, according to Farris, “nobody noticed,” DeGuzman was also found not guilty, though Ahern did note that he was “factually guilty of possessing a sawed-off rifle and shotgun. The error claimed these charges took place on Jan. 10, 1997, just over four years prior to his arrest.