Kankakee Felon to Serve Nearly Six Years in Federal Prison for Weapons Charges

Urbana, Ill. B Roosevelt Smith, 22, of the 1300 block of South 7th Avenue, Kankakee, Ill., was sentenced on Monday to serve 70 months (five years, 10 months) in federal prison for illegal possession of firearms by a felon, as announced by U.S. Attorney Jim Lewis, Central District of Illinois. Smith has been in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service since his arrest in September 2014.

Smith pled guilty on Jan. 7, 2015, to four counts of possession of a firearm by a felon.  According to court documents, Smith illegally possessed and sold firearms on four separate occasions in Kankakee from 2013 to 2014.  One of the firearms Smith sold had previously been reported stolen during a residential burglary; another of the firearms Smith sold was a sawed-off shotgun. At the time of the offenses, Smith had prior convictions for battery and burglary, both in Kankakee County, and was on felony parole for the burglary at the time he illegally possessed and sold the firearms.

The case is the result of ongoing investigations related to gun violence in the Kankakee area by the Kankakee Area Project Safe Neighborhoods Task Force, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, and the Kankakee Police Department.  The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Eugene L. Miller.