Judge gives Bobb'e J. Thompson 30 months on federal gun charge

Bobb'e J. Thompson, the former child actor known for playing Stanley on Disney Channel's That's So Raven, was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison for illegal possession of a firearm by a felon. U.S. District Court Judge Leonard T. Strand imposed the sentence on September 16 in Sioux City, Iowa. Thompson, 30, of Kansas City, Missouri, pleaded guilty to the charge in April.

Law enforcement conducted a traffic stop and as the officer was exiting his vehicle, he observed Thompson and the passenger switching seats. The odor of marijuana was also emitting from the vehicle. During a search of the vehicle, officers located a backpack belonging to Thompson that contained multiple bags of dispensary-bought marijuana, and a .40 caliber handgun that was fully loaded with a 15-round magazine, and a round in the chamber. The firearm had been reported stolen from a vehicle in Kansas City, Missouri.

Federal prosecutors said law enforcement clocked a vehicle driven by Thompson at 104 mph in a 70 mph zone in Cerro Gordo County, Iowa, on September 22, 2025. As the officer stepped out of his patrol vehicle at the traffic stop, he reported seeing Thompson and a passenger switching seats, and noted the odor of marijuana coming from the car. Thompson, who later disputed that account, was arrested.

What officers found in the backpack

Officers searched the car and found the backpack, which prosecutors identified as Thompson's. The .40-caliber pistol inside was fully loaded, with 15 rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber. Several bags of marijuana in the same backpack had been bought from a dispensary. Thompson's earlier felony convictions already barred him from possessing a firearm.

1. September 22, 2025, traffic stop in Cerro Gordo County, Iowa, at 104 mph
2. April 28, 2026, guilty plea to possession of a firearm by a felon
3. September 16, 2026, 30-month sentence imposed in Sioux City
4. Held by the U.S. Marshals Service pending transfer to a federal prison

Thompson pleaded guilty on April 28, 2026, to possession of a firearm by a felon. The case was handled in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa, and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the district laid out the evidence when it announced the outcome. Strand imposed the sentence at a hearing in Sioux City.

The 30-month term amounts to two and a half years. Thompson will serve three years of supervised release after he leaves prison. There is no parole in the federal system, prosecutors said.

Thompson is being held by the U.S. Marshals Service while he waits to be transported to a federal prison, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. The supervised release will not begin until the prison term is complete.

A career that started in childhood

Thompson was born in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1996 and began performing as a child. He appeared on The Tracy Morgan Show before becoming familiar to Disney Channel viewers as Stanley, the neighborhood prankster who turned up around Raven Baxter's home. He appeared in 10 episodes of That's So Raven and later played the character again in the spinoff Cory in the House.

• That's So Raven, as Stanley on Disney Channel
• Cory in the House, the That's So Raven spinoff
• 30 Rock, as Tracy Jr. on NBC
• Role Models (2008), as Ronnie Shields
• Tyler Perry's House of Payne and MTV's Wild 'N Out
• Shark Tale, Fred Claus and Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

On NBC's 30 Rock, Thompson played Tracy Jr. His best-known film role came in the 2008 comedy Role Models, in which he played Ronnie Shields alongside Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott. The performance earned him a nomination for Best Breakthrough Performance Male at the 2009 MTV Movie Awards. His film credits also include Idlewild, Land of the Lost, Imagine That and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. He also hosted the Cartoon Network series Bobb'e Says.

Work continued into adulthood. He appeared in Funny Thing About Love, which premiered on ALLBLK in June 2026. Thompson attended the closing night screening of Big Boss at the 2023 Atlanta Film Festival. Aside from acting, he is a rapper.

In 2024, Thompson talked publicly about working with Tracy Morgan on The Tracy Morgan Show. During an appearance on the Comedy Hype podcast, he alleged that Morgan mistreated him when he was a child, claiming the comedian became upset when Thompson was "stealing laughs" and would criticize him to producers. Morgan and his representatives had not responded when the allegations were reported in April 2024, and have not since.

Who investigated and prosecuted the case

The Iowa State Patrol, the Cerro Gordo County Sheriff's Department and the Iowa Division of Narcotics Enforcement investigated the case, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Iowa.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Ron Timmons prosecuted the case for the government. Thompson's guilty plea in April resolved the charge without a trial, leaving the September hearing in Sioux City to decide the punishment. He has been in federal custody since, held by the U.S. Marshals Service.

He remains in U.S. Marshals custody, and the office has not said when the transfer will happen.

The handgun taken from the backpack had been reported stolen from a vehicle in Kansas City, Missouri, prosecutors said. Authorities determined the weapon's status after the traffic stop, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. Thompson is a Kansas City native and lives in the city.

What the count actually covers

Thompson admitted a single federal count: possession of a firearm by a felon. Not the speeding, not the marijuana, and not the theft of the handgun from a car in Kansas City. The federal charge is about a convicted felon having a gun.

Why the case became federal

Prosecutors pointed to three earlier convictions when they announced the sentence. Thompson was convicted in 2020 of battery with serious bodily injury and, the same year, of assault with force. A 2022 conviction was for prohibited possession of a firearm. The U.S. Attorney's Office listed all three in its account of Thompson's criminal history.

People with qualifying felony convictions are generally prohibited from possessing firearms, which is why officers finding another gun in Thompson's backpack exposed him to a federal charge. The prohibition applied to him on the day of the Iowa stop because of the 2020 and 2022 cases. The offense is charged as felon in possession of a firearm.

The release described the 2020 assault with force conviction as possibly resulting in great bodily injury, and Thompson's record weighed in the federal case. Prosecutors cited that history in the announcement of the sentence.

The 2022 conviction was itself for prohibited possession of a firearm, so the Iowa stop was not the first time Thompson had faced a gun possession case. The current federal case concerns specifically his possession of a firearm as a convicted felon. The dispensary-bought marijuana appears in the prosecutors' account of the search, but the count he admitted was the firearm offense.

What happens next

Thompson will stay in federal custody until the Marshals Service moves him to a correctional facility, where the 30-month term will be served. His three years of supervised release start after that term ends. The U.S. Attorney's Office said the transfer is pending.

Thompson's acting career began before he was a teenager and continued into adulthood, from Shark Tale and Fred Claus to Me and Earl and the Dying Girl and Tyler Perry's House of Payne. The federal case interrupting it started with a speeding car on an Iowa highway on September 22, 2025, and ended in a Sioux City courtroom on September 16.