United States of America .v Antonio Bishop

Scranton, Pennsylvania, criminal defense lawyer represented the Defendant charged with attempting to provide contraband of an inmate.



Antonio Bishop was convicted of both attempting to provide contraband to a federal inmate and attempting to obtain contraband by a federal inmate. On appeal, he argues that the District Court committed reversible error by not granting a mistrial when the prosecution introduced evidence implying that he must have, on a prior occasion, introduced drugs into the prison or threatened a federal official. However, we do not need to decide whether its admission was erroneous. Any error was harmless due to the overwhelming evidence of Bishop's guilt and his trial counsel's concessions in closing

argument. We also find no merit in his challenges to his procedurally and substantively reasonable sentence. We will therefore affirm his judgments of conviction and sentence.



In December 2020, Bishop was indicted on one count of attempting to provide contraband (suboxone) to a federal inmate (Count One),1 and one count of attempting, as a federal inmate, to obtain contraband (tobacco) (Count Two).2 The indictment alleged that, in December 2019, Bishop was imprisoned at United States Penitentiary (USP) Canaan when he communicated via email and phone with multiple people outside the prison for the purpose of introducing controlled substances and other prohibited objects into the prison for distribution. At trial, the prosecution presented evidence that, on January 13, 2020, USP Canaan Corrections Officer Steve Potter retrieved a package at the prison's warehouse facility where packages containing the property of newly transferred inmates are received and processed. The package was addressed to Louis Pitts, a USP Canaan inmate who, like Bishop, was assigned to the Residential Drug Addiction Program (RDAP) unit. The package purportedly came from USP Atlanta in Georgia, and it contained a carbon-copy property sheet for an interfacility inmate transfer. Potter found the package suspicious, and turned it over to Mark Turner, then a Special Investigative Services Technician. Turner searched it and found twenty-two (22) bags of tobacco inside a container of ramen noodles and 194 strips of suboxone inside boxes of Little Debbie treats.3 He later confirmed that Pitts had not been sent a package from USP Atlanta,

Antonio Bishop, is hereby committed to the custody of the Bureau of Prisons to be imprisoned for a term consists of ONE HUNDRED SIXTY-EIGHT (168) MONTHS on COUNT 1 and SIX (6) months on COUNT 2, to run concurrently. The defendant shall pay to the Clerk, U.S. District Court, a special assessment of $100 on Count 1 and $10 on Count 2 for a total of $110, due immediately. Court finds that the defendant does not have the ability to pay a fine and no fine is imposed. Supervised release for a term of TWO (2) YEARS on Count 1. Court recommends a federal institution proximal to Georgia or South Carolina. Defendant to remanded to USM.