A federal judge in Iowa has sent Bobb’e J. Thompson to prison for 30 months over a loaded, stolen pistol that a state trooper turned up in his car. The former child actor — a foe of Raven’s younger brother on “That’s So Raven” and the television son of actor Tracy Morgan’s character on two other sitcoms — was pulled over after the trooper clocked him at 104 mph in Cerro Gordo County, Iowa, on September 22, 2025.
Thompson, whose listed age is 30, pleaded guilty in Iowa federal court to possession of a firearm by a prohibited person, the charge commonly described as felon in possession. Once he is out, he faces three years of supervised release.
None of that prison time will be folded into anything else. U.S. District Court Judge Leonard T. Strand ordered the two-and-a-half-year term to run consecutively with whatever prison time may be imposed in the other criminal cases still pending against Thompson in Washington and Missouri, so the Iowa sentence stacks on top of any punishment those courts hand down.
Strand’s judgment recommends that Thompson serve the term 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 Officers Found in the Car
Speed is what started the federal case. Thompson was traveling more than 30 mph above the posted limit when an officer stopped the vehicle in northern Iowa, according to a news release from the U.S. attorney’s office for the Northern District of Iowa. He had been clocked at 104 mph in a 70 mph zone.
The officer saw Thompson and the passenger trade seats as he approached the car, the release said, and reported the smell of marijuana drifting 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. Police said the pistol had been reported stolen out of a car in Kansas City, Missouri.
A grand jury indicted Thompson on January 14, 2026, and he pleaded guilty on April 28, months before the sentence came down.
Two Earlier Convictions in Los Angeles
A record built in California is what barred Thompson from carrying a gun. Prosecutors said he was convicted in Los Angeles in January 2020 of battery with serious bodily injury and assault with force. A second Los Angeles case, in 2022, ended in a conviction for prohibited possession of a firearm.
He joins a growing list of actors who came up through Disney and have since been found guilty in federal court.
A Career That Began at Six
Thompson broke into television in 2002, at six years old, on the sitcom “My Wife and Kids.” Work came fast after that, and much of it ran 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 later revived on “30 Rock.”
As Stanley, he was a nemesis to Corey — the younger brother of the title character — on “That’s So Raven,” and he carried the role into the short-lived spin-off “Corey in the House.” He also has credits on “Role Models” and “Tyler Perry’s House of Payne.”
His adult work kept him in the orbit of Nick Cannon. Cannon’s series “Wild ‘n Out” gave Thompson five seasons of work between 2018 and 2020, and he came back for a single episode in 2023. He also appeared in the 2021 VH1 film “Miracles Across 125th Street,” which starred Cannon. His most recent credit was the 2026 ALLBLK movie “Funny Thing About Love.”
Support From a Former Co-Star
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.
Whatever Thompson needs, Massey said, he and the people around the actor will take care of it, and they will be rooting for him no matter what. It always hurts, he added, to watch a friend or someone you love go through something that hard. Massey closed by telling Thompson to keep his head up and that he was loved.
