The loaded, stolen pistol a state trooper found in Bobb’e J. Thompson’s car has cost the former child actor 30 months in federal prison. A federal judge in Iowa handed down the sentence on Wednesday, September 16, 2026, to Thompson, who was cast as a rival to Raven’s little brother on “That’s So Raven” and as the on-screen son of actor Tracy Morgan’s character in two other sitcoms. The traffic stop came in Cerro Gordo County, Iowa, on September 22, 2025, after the trooper clocked him at 104 mph.
In Iowa federal court, Thompson, 30, pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm by a prohibited person, the charge known in shorthand as felon in possession. Once he is out, he faces three years of supervised release.
U.S. District Court Judge Leonard T. Strand ordered that the two-and-a-half-year term run consecutively with any prison time that may be imposed in Thompson’s other criminal cases, which remain pending in Washington and Missouri. Nothing will absorb the Iowa sentence — it stacks on top of whatever punishment those courts hand down.
Strand recommended in his judgment that Thompson do the time at a federal prison in Oklahoma, Illinois or Kansas, or at “a Bureau of Prisons facility as close to the defendant’s family as possible.”
What the Search of the Car Turned Up
Speed set the case in motion. Thompson was driving more than 30 mph over the posted limit when an officer pulled the vehicle over in northern Iowa, according to a news release from the U.S. attorney’s office for the Northern District of Iowa.
The officer saw Thompson and the passenger swap seats while approaching the car, the release said, and reported the smell of marijuana coming out of the vehicle. A search turned up a backpack holding bags of marijuana bought at a dispensary along with a .40-caliber handgun carrying a full 15-round magazine. The pistol had been reported stolen out of a car in Kansas City, Missouri, police said.
A grand jury indicted him January 14, 2026. His guilty plea followed on April 28, months before the sentence came down.
Two Prior Convictions in Los Angeles
A record built in California is why Thompson was barred from carrying a gun. Prosecutors said he was convicted of battery with serious bodily injury and assault with force in Los Angeles in January 2020. He was convicted in Los Angeles again in 2022, that time of prohibited possession of a firearm.
He now joins a growing list of actors who came up through Disney and have since been found guilty in federal court.
A Career That Started at Six
He was six years old when his television career began, in 2002 on the sitcom “My Wife and Kids.” Work came fast after that, much of it running on the same comic engine: a very small kid with an outsized mouth. On “The Tracy Morgan Show” he played the son of Tracy Morgan’s character, a pairing the two actors revived on “30 Rock.”
As Stanley on “That’s So Raven,” Thompson was a nemesis to Cory, the younger brother of the title character, and he carried the role into the short-lived spin-off, “Cory in the House.” “Role Models” and “Tyler Perry’s House of Payne” are among his other credits.
In adulthood, Thompson kept working with Nick Cannon, whose series “Wild ‘n Out” gave him five seasons of work between 2018 and 2020; he came back for a single episode in 2023. He also turned up in the 2021 VH1 film “Miracles Across 125th Street,” which starred Cannon. The 2026 ALLBLK movie “Funny Thing About Love” was his most recent credit.
Backing From a Former Co-Star
Actor Kyle Massey, who co-starred with Thompson on “That’s So Raven,” talked about him with TMZ on September 21. “Free Bobb’e J., man, that’s my brother,” Massey said.
He and the people around Thompson will stand by him and take care of whatever he needs, Massey said, and they will be pulling for him no matter what. Seeing a friend or someone you love go through something that hard always hurts, he added. Massey also told Thompson to keep his head up and said he was loved.
