Source: United States Department of Justice News
Montgomery, Alabama – Today, United States Attorney Sandra J. Stewart announced that Shaheyne Phillip Thomas, 28, from Tuskegee, Alabama, received a 100-month prison sentence. Thomas had previously pleaded guilty to committing federal gun and drug offenses while on supervised release from a previous conviction. The judge also ordered that Thomas serve five years of supervised release following his prison sentence.
According to Thomas’s plea agreement and other court records, on March 30, 2021, officers from the Alexander City Police Department conducted a traffic stop on a vehicle Thomas was driving. When speaking with Thomas, the officers noticed the smell of alcohol. They also saw an open container inside the car. When the officers asked Thomas for a driver’s license and proof of insurance, he was unable to produce either. The officers then searched Thomas’s vehicle and found methamphetamine, $657 in cash, and a 9mm handgun, which was located under the floormat on the driver’s side of the vehicle. On November 18, 2022, Thomas pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine and possession of a firearm in relation to a drug trafficking crime. The 100-month sentence was ordered on February 23, 2023.
At the time of the March 2021 arrest, Thomas was on federal supervised release. He had previously served approximately three years in prison following a 2018 federal conviction for being a felon in possession of a firearm. Soon after the March 2021 arrest, in June of 2021, a judge revoked Thomas’s supervised release and sentenced him to 24 months in prison for violating the terms of his release. Thomas will serve the 100-month sentence imposed last week only after he finishes serving the 24-month sentence imposed in June of 2021.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Alexander City Police Department investigated the case, with assistance from the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences. Assistant United States Attorney Russell T. Duraski prosecuted this case.