St. Albans felon gets 15 years for illegal firearm possession

CHARLESTON, W.Va. – United States Attorney Booth Goodwin announced today that Desmond Ra’Keesh White, 26, of St. Albans, West Virginia, was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison.

In October 2014, White pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm. On July 9, 2014, White was arrested by Charleston Police Department officers following a vehicle stop on Charleston’s West Side. The arrest led to the recovery of a firearm inside White’s car, which he admitted on the scene belonged to him.

White had previously been convicted in the Circuit Court of Kanawha County, West Virginia, in 2007 of armed robbery, grand larceny and three counts of burglary. He was on parole for the robbery conviction when arrested in July. White was sentenced as an armed career criminal, which provided for a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years.

United States District Judge Thomas E. Johnston imposed the sentence.

The case was investigated by the Charleston Police Department, with assistance from the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Assistant United States Attorneys Jennifer Rada Herrald and Monica Coleman were in charge of the prosecution.

This case was prosecuted as part of Project Safe Neighborhoods, a commitment of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of West Virginia to reduce gun crime by networking existing local programs.

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