Guns and Heroin Send Washington County Man to Federal Prison

PITTSBURGH - A former resident of Detroit, Michigan and recent resident of Washington, Pennsylvania, was sentenced on Tuesday, June 18, 2019, in federal court to eight years and four months (100 months) of federal imprisonment followed by five years of supervised release on his conviction of federal drug and firearms offenses, United States Attorney Scott W. Brady announced today.

Senior United States District Judge Joy Flowers Conti imposed the sentence on Bobby Leon Cook, aka "Shorty", age 30.

According to information presented to the court, the investigation revealed that Cook was selling heroin from a Red Roof Inn hotel in Washington County. Working in an undercover capacity, a detective with the Canonsburg Police Department made recorded calls to Cook and arranged to buy a "brick" containing 50 stamp bags of opiates from Cook for $350. Cook was stopped after leaving the hotel and was found to be in possession of a total of 70 stamp bags of heroin and $3,293 in cash. Law enforcement subsequently searched his hotel room and located items which included unfilled stamp bags, a digital scale, rubber bands used to package stamp bags into "bricks," three pistols (a .380 caliber, a .357 caliber and a .38 caliber), and ammunition. One of the firearms was stolen in a Washington County residential burglary.

While imposing sentence, Judge Conti noted that people are dying from heroin purchased from opiate dealers like Cook and that his illegal possession of multiple firearms made the situation even more dangerous.

United States Attorney Brady commended the collective efforts of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Canonsburg Police Department, the Washington County Sheriff’s Office, the City of Washington Police Department, the Robinson Township Police Department, the Coraopolis Police Department, the Monessen Police Department, the Pennsylvania State Police and the Washington County Drug Task Force for the investigation leading to the successful prosecution of Cook.

The investigation was funded by the federal Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force Program (OCDETF). The OCDETF program supplies critical federal funding and coordination that allows federal and state agencies to work together to successfully identify, investigate, and prosecute major interstate and international drug trafficking organizations and other criminal enterprises.