Federal Inmate Pleads Guilty to Weapon Charge

CHARLESTON, W.Va. – United States Attorney Mike Stuart announced today that a federal inmate pled guilty to a weapon charge.  Joshua Allen, 29, pled guilty to being an inmate in possession of a weapon, admitting that on December 7, 2018, while he was an inmate at the Federal Correctional Institution at Beckley, he possessed a handcrafted weapon known as a “shank.”  He admitted that a staff member at the prison recovered the weapon after he tried to discard it.  Allen faces up to five years in prison, consecutive to the sentence he is now serving, when he is sentenced on October 2, 2019.

The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons and is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney John File.  United States District Judge Irene C. Berger presided at the plea hearing.