Dayton Man Sentenced to Ten Years in Prison on Federal Firearms and Drug Trafficking Charges
Offenses Involved Abduction and Attempted Robbery by Repeat Offender

DAYTON—Stepheon White, age 32, of Dayton, Ohio, was sentenced in United States District Court here today to a total of 120 months' imprisonment on firearms and drug charges stemming from his involvement in an armed abduction and attempted robbery of a person he suspected had or could obtain cocaine.

William E. Hunt, Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, Keith L. Bennett, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Cincinnati Field Division, Christopher P. Sadowski, Special Agent in Charge, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), Richard Biehl, Chief, Dayton Police Department, and the FBI Safe Streets Task Force consisting of the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Department, FBI, Dayton Police Department and ATF, announced the sentence delivered by United States District Judge Thomas M. Rose today.

White pleaded guilty on July 2, 2009 to one count of attempting to possess with intent to distribute cocaine and one count of using and carrying a firearm during and in relation to a drug trafficking crime. According to the statement of facts filed with his plea agreement, White and other individuals abducted a person at gunpoint whom they believed to be a drug dealer in August, 2008 and drove him to a vacant house to rob him. Though the robbery attempt was interrupted by a Dayton Police Officer on patrol and the abductors and robbers fled the scene, White was later arrested in February, 2009 by FBI Safe Street Task Force officers. At the time of his arrest, officers recovered a loaded revolver from White’s pocket.

White also pleaded guilty on June 16, 2009 to two counts of being a felon in possession of a firearm, one count stemming from the revolver recovered at the time of his arrest, and the other from a loaded pistol White threw from a car as he attempted to flee from officers conducting a traffic stop on December 20, 2008. White was previously convicted of armed robbery in Franklin County in 2000, for which he served seven years in prison. White was sentenced today to five years' imprisonment on the drug trafficking charge. White also received five-year sentences on each of the felon in possession charges to run concurrently with each other and with the drug trafficking charge. In addition, White was sentenced to five years for the use and carrying of a firearm during a drug trafficking crime to run consecutively with all other charges, for a total of 10 years' imprisonment.  White was also sentenced to five years of supervised release—a form of parole to follow the prison term—on each charge to run concurrently. White has been in custody since his arrest.

This case was prosecuted under Project Safe Neighborhoods, an intense coordinated effort by federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies to target criminals from communities with persistent high levels of drug and gun crime and vigorously prosecute them in federal court. For more information on Project Safe Neighborhoods, visit www.psn.gov.

Hunt commended the efforts of Dayton Police officers—particularly the Officer who, while on routine patrol, observed and interrupted the robbery in progress, attempted to apprehend the robbers, and attended to the person abducted—and agents of the FBI, ATF, and Safe Streets Task Force for their cooperative investigation of the case, as well as Assistant United States Attorney Laura Clemmens, who prosecuted the case.