Bobb’e J. Thompson — the child actor who 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 — drew a 30-month federal prison sentence from a judge in Iowa on Wednesday, September 16, 2026. A state trooper had clocked his car at 104 mph in Cerro Gordo County, Iowa, on September 22, 2025, and turned up a loaded, stolen pistol inside. He was also ordered to serve three years of supervised release once he is out.
In Iowa federal court, Thompson, 30, had pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm by a prohibited person, a count better known as felon in possession.
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. Nothing will absorb it: the Iowa sentence stacks on top of any punishment those courts hand down.
Strand also recommended that Thompson be housed in a federal prison in Oklahoma, Illinois or Kansas, or in “a Bureau of Prisons facility as close to the defendant’s family as possible,” according to his judgment.
What Officers Found in the Car
Speed is what brought Thompson into federal custody. 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. The stretch of road where he was pulled over carried a 70 mph limit.
Thompson and the passenger swapped seats as the officer walked up, 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 along with a .40-caliber handgun carrying a full 15-round magazine. That pistol, police said, had been reported stolen out of a car in Kansas City, Missouri.
A grand jury returned an indictment against Thompson on January 14, 2026, and his guilty plea followed on April 28, months ahead of sentencing.
Two Earlier Convictions in Los Angeles
Thompson could not legally carry a gun because of a record he built in California. Prosecutors pointed to a January 2020 conviction in Los Angeles for battery with serious bodily injury and assault with force. Los Angeles courts convicted him again in 2022, that time of prohibited possession of a firearm.
He is the latest former Disney performer to be convicted of a federal crime.
A Career That Began at Six
He was six years old in 2002 when the sitcom “My Wife and Kids” launched his television career. Work piled up 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, and he later appeared on Morgan’s next sitcom, “30 Rock.”
As Stanley on “That’s So Raven,” he was a nemesis to Cory, the younger brother of the title character, and he carried the role into the show’s short-lived spin-off, “Cory in the House.” “Role Models” and “Tyler Perry’s House of Payne” sit among his other credits.
Adulthood kept Thompson 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 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 to TMZ on September 21. “Free Bobb’e J., man, that’s my brother,” Massey said.
He and the people around Thompson would stand by him and handle whatever he needed, Massey said, and they would be rooting for him no matter what. Seeing a friend or someone you love go through something that hard always hurts, he added. Massey also urged Thompson to keep his head up and told him he was loved.