Department of Justice
U.S. Attorney’s Office
District of Columbia

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, November 1, 2019

WASHINGTON- Francis Bankins, 37, of the District, was sentenced to 80 months in prison yesterday for the unlawful possession of a firearm announced U.S. Attorney Jessie K. Liu and Peter Newsham, Chief of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD).

           Bankins was previously found guilty of unlawful possession of a firearm and ammunition by a person convicted of crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year. He was sentenced in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by the Honorable Colleen Kollar-Kotelly to 80 months in prison. Upon completion of hi prison term, he will be placed on three years of supervised release.

           According to the government’s evidence, on June 11, 2018, at approximately 5:05 P.M., officers of the Metropolitan Police Department’s Narcotics Special Investigations Division (NSID) were in the area of 3101 Naylor Road, S.E., Washington, D.C., conducted a traffic stop on a vehicle with heavily tinted windows. Bankins was seated in the front passenger seat of the vehicle. Officers approached the vehicle, spoke with Bankins, and asked him to exit the vehicle. Bankins repeatedly refused but eventually got out of the vehicle. As he exited the vehicle, an officer observed that the right front pocket of Bankins’ jacket was weighed down with what he believed to be a weapon. Recovered from Bankin’s jacket pocket was a .357 Magnum revolver with five rounds in the cylinder.

           In announcing the sentence, U.S. Attorney Liu and Chief Newsham praised the work of the officers from MPD’s NSID Division. They also acknowledged the efforts of those who worked on the case from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, including Assistant U.S. Attorney Emory V. Cole of the Violent Crime and Narcotics Trafficking Section, who indicted and prosecuted the case, and Paralegal Specialist Teesha Tobias, former Paralegal Specialist Jeannette Litz, and Legal Assistant Emma Atlas.