Actor Bobb’e J. Thompson has been sentenced to 30 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to unlawfully possessing a firearm as a felon.
Thompson, 30, was arrested in September 2025 in Iowa after law enforcement stopped the vehicle he was driving for speeding. Prosecutors said the car was travelling 104 mph in a 70 mph zone and contained several bags of marijuana along with a loaded .40-caliber handgun that had been reported stolen in Kansas City, Missouri.
U.S. District Judge Leonard T. Strand, sitting in Sioux City, also imposed a three-year term of supervised release. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Iowa noted that Thompson has prior convictions for battery, assault and illegal firearm possession, which is what made the possession itself a federal offense.
Thompson began acting as a child and is known for playing Tracy Jr. on 30 Rock, Stanley on That’s So Raven, Ronnie Shields in Role Models and Jimmy Mitchell on The Tracy Morgan Show. He later appeared on MTV’s Wild ’N Out.
Why this was a federal case
The charge is worth explaining, because most gun possession is prosecuted by states and this wasn’t. Federal law bars anyone convicted of a felony from possessing a firearm that has moved in interstate commerce, and that last clause is what usually supplies federal jurisdiction. A handgun reported stolen in Missouri and recovered in a car in Iowa satisfies it comfortably.
That distinction carries real weight at sentencing. Federal firearm offenses run on the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, where prior convictions drive the range upward, and federal sentences have no parole. Thompson will serve most of the 30 months, not a fraction of it. After that comes three years of supervised release, a monitored status that can send someone back to prison for things that wouldn’t be crimes on their own.
The speed and the marijuana are what put him in contact with police, but neither is what he was sentenced for. He was sentenced for having the gun while barred from having one.
