Federal Inmate Sentenced To Prison For Possessing A Weapon
Wednesday, November 13, 2024, 6:15 A.M. ET. 1 Minute Read, By Art Fletcher: Englebrook Independent News,
BLUEFIELD, W.VA.- On Tuesday, November 12, 2024, Tony Lashon Cleveland, 27, an inmate at the Federal Correctional Institution McDowell, appeared in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia and was sentenced by Senior U.S. District Court Judge David A. Faber to 15 months in federal prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release for his conviction of Possessing a Weapon by a Federal Inmate.
According to U.S. Attorney Will Thompson and documents filed with the district court, around September 12, 2023, an FCI McDowell guard conducted a pat-down search of Cleveland and found a homemade weapon, also known as a “Shank,” in one of his socks.
The shank was a piece of metal approximately five inches long with a sharpened point on one end and melted plastic on the other end fashioned into a handle. During his previously entered guilty plea, Cleveland admitted to possessing the shank and further acknowledged that it was fashioned and intended to be used as a weapon.
In handing down the sentence, Judge Faber ordered the 15-month sentence to run consecutively to the sentence Cleveland is serving. U.S. Attorney Thompson commended the investigative work of the Bureau of Prisons.
