A federal judge in Iowa has sentenced child actor Bobb’e J. Thompson to 30 months in federal prison over a loaded, stolen pistol that a state trooper recovered from his car after clocking him at 104 mph in Cerro Gordo County, Iowa, on September 22, 2025. Thompson played 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.
Thompson, whose listed age is 30, pleaded guilty to a federal count of possession of a firearm by a prohibited person — the charge commonly described as felon in possession — in Iowa federal court. He was also ordered to serve three years of supervised release once he is out.
Nothing else will absorb the two-and-a-half-year term. U.S. District Court Judge Leonard T. Strand ordered it 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 punishment stacks on top of anything those courts hand down.
His judgment also carries a recommendation: that Thompson serve the term in 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
The case that landed Thompson in federal custody began with speed. He 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.
Thompson and the passenger traded seats as the officer walked up to the car, the release said, and the officer reported the smell of marijuana drifting out of the vehicle. A search turned up a backpack holding bags of marijuana bought at a dispensary and a .40-caliber handgun carrying a full 15-round magazine. That pistol had been reported stolen out of a car in Kansas City, Missouri, police said.
A grand jury indicted him on January 14, 2026, and he entered his guilty plea on April 28, months before the sentence came down.
Two Earlier Convictions in Los Angeles
A record built in California barred Thompson from carrying a gun. He was convicted in Los Angeles in January 2020 of battery with serious bodily injury and assault with force, prosecutors said, and in 2022 he was convicted in Los Angeles of 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, much of it powered by the same comic engine: a very small kid with an outsized mouth. He played the son of Tracy Morgan’s character on “The Tracy Morgan Show,” and the two actors brought that pairing back on “30 Rock.”
As Stanley on “That’s So Raven,” he was a nemesis to Corey, the younger brother of the title character, and he carried the role into the short-lived spin-off, “Corey in the House.” He also appeared in “Role Models” and “Tyler Perry’s House of Payne.”
In adulthood, Thompson stayed in the orbit of Nick Cannon. Cannon’s series “Wild ‘n Out” gave him five seasons of work between 2018 and 2020, and he came back for a single episode in 2023. He turned up as well in “Miracles Across 125th Street,” the 2021 VH1 film that 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.
Massey said he and the people around Thompson would support him, take care of whatever he needed and root for him no matter what. It always hurts, he added, to watch a friend or someone you love go through something that hard. He also urged Thompson to keep his head up and told him he was loved.
