Federal and International, Law and Order

Felon on Federal Supervision Hit With 16 Year Sentence for Drug Trafficking and Death Threats


Justice, Albert V. Bryan District Courthouse, Tim Evanson
Justice outside the Albert V. Bryan District Courthouse in Alexandria, VA. (Photo: Tim Evanson – Flickr – CC license)

Springfield, IL-(ENEWSPF)- Anthony Dobbins, 51, of East St. Louis, Illinois, will serve 201 months in federal prison for possession with intent to distribute heroin and cocaine, influencing a federal official by threat, and mailing threatening communications, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois, Steven D. Weinhoeft, announced. Dobbins committed his offenses while on federal supervised release for a 2001 armed bank robbery.

Evidence presented in court showed that on August 10, 2018, when officers arrived at an apartment to arrest Dobbins for violations of his federal supervised release, Dobbins threw two large bags of pressed heroin and one large bag of crack cocaine out the window. In total, the bags contained over 200 grams of heroin and 90 grams of crack cocaine. During a subsequent search of the apartment, officers found two digital scales, packaging materials, drug ledgers, and a full box of .40 caliber ammunition, as well as a small bag of heroin on Dobbins’ bed.

Dobbins pleaded guilty to the drug offenses in December 2018. Then, while he was still in custody at the Alton jail waiting to be sentenced, Dobbins mailed threatening letters to the Director of the Bureau of Prisons in Washington D.C. and the Director of the North Central Regional Office of the Bureau of Prisons in Kansas City, Kansas. In the letters, Dobbins made overt and explicit threats that, upon his return to prison, he would kill the first Bureau of Prisons employee he could get his “uncuffed hands on.” When interviewed, Dobbins admitted he sent the letters and doubled down on his intent to kill someone on staff at the prison.

A new indictment was returned on April 2, 2019, and Dobbins pleaded guilty to the threat charges on April 20, without a plea agreement.

At sentencing, the court heard evidence that Dobbins is a ten-time convicted felon and a high-ranking member of the Gangster Disciplines, a notoriously violent street gang. During his 2001 armed bank robbery, Dobbins held the bank employees at gunpoint, taped their mouths, hands and feet, and threatened to kill them if they didn’t comply with his demands. His 201-month sentence includes 51 months for violating the terms of his supervised release on that conviction.

Dobbins was also ordered to serve a five-year term of supervised release at the expiration of his prison sentence.

The investigation was conducted by the Illinois State Police Metro East Police Assistance Team (MEPAT), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, the United States Marshal Service (USMS), and the Alton Police Department.

This is from a release from the United States Department of Justice.


ARCHIVES