PORTLAND — Two local men, one of whom the Los Angeles Times said supplied a gun to the man charged with the Boston Marathon bombing, was sentenced Friday in U.S. District Court on drug charges.

Biniam “Icy” Tsegai, 28, of Portland was sentenced to eight years in prison for his role in a crack cocaine trafficking conspiracy in Maine’s largest city between November 2010 and February 2012, according to the U.S. attorney’s office. Tsegai, a native of Eritrea, pleaded guilty in May to one count of conspiracy to distribute and possession with the intent to distribute cocaine base.

A May 13 Los Angeles Times report cited Department of Justice documents indicating that the 9 mm semiautomatic Ruger allegedly used by Tamerlan Tsarnaev to shoot at pursuing police officers in Watertown, Massachusetts, after the Boston Marathon bombing was purchased at Cabella’s in Scarborough by Danny Sun Jr. of South Portland, originally of Los Angeles.

Sun allegedly said he passed the gun to Tsegai. How the gun ended up with Tsarnaev had not been explained, according to a previously published report.

In addition to prison time, U.S. District Judge Nancy Torresen sentenced Tsegai to five years of supervised release and ordered him to pay a $760 fine.

Tsegai worked for Hamadi Hassan, 32, or Portland, who led the crack cocaine conspiracy, the U.S. attorney’s office said in a press release issued Friday.

Hassan, a native of Somalia, was sentenced Friday to 30 years in prison to be followed by five years of supervised release. His federal sentence is to run concurrently with a sentence he is serving in state prison for an assault on one of his drug customers, according to the press release.

Information about the length of his state sentence was not available late Friday.

Hassan pleaded guilty in May to the same drug trafficking charge Tsegai did and five counts of unlawful use of a communication device.

The defendants were part of a drug trafficking conspiracy that acquired cocaine in Boston and distributed crack cocaine in Greater Portland between November 2010 and February 2012, according to court documents. Hassan was the leader of the conspiracy, took orders for crack cocaine from customers and co-conspirators, transported cocaine from Boston to Maine, and prepared, packaged and delivered crack cocaine to his customers and co-conspirators.

Tsegai prepared crack cocaine for sale and distribution after it had been brought to Maine and he took orders for and delivered user-level quantities of crack cocaine to customers.

The duo operated their drug trafficking ring out of hotels in Greater Portland, according to court documents. They often carried firearms and held large sums of cash. They hid crack cocaine throughout Greater Portland in milk containers or cigarette cartons left randomly on the sides of the roads, in bushes, under trees and in wooded areas. On May 16, 2011, police recovered more than 20 grams of the defendants’ crack cocaine inside a cigarette box in the play area of a local day care facility.

Torresen noted that Hassan’s lengthy criminal history, including three prior convictions for drug trafficking and violent crimes, and his violent nature warranted the lengthy sentence imposed on him, the release said. According to evidence presented at the sentencing hearing, Hassan threw a co-conspirator to the ground and broke her ribs by stomping on them because of an unpaid drug debt, choked a second co-conspirator while promising to kill her if she cooperated with authorities, and forced a third co-conspirator to sell narcotics from her hospital bed while she was admitted.

Both men faced up to 40 years in prison and a fine of up to $5 million.