GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN —U.S. Attorney Mark Totten announced today that U.S. District Court Judge Robert J. Jonker sentenced Treshawn Kalian Bible, age 23, of Kalamazoo, Michigan, to 125 months in federal prison for illegally possessing a firearm as a convicted felon. This is the third time in four years that Bible has been convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm, and today’s sentence was enhanced because Bible possessed his firearm in connection with drug trafficking. Judge Jonker observed that Bible is “enmeshed in gang culture” and “needs to stop.” Addressing the broader community, Judge Jonker said that a “message needs to go out: there really is a serious cost” to this type of behavior.
“Bible had an opportunity to reject a life of violence, but instead treated his federal firearms conviction as a badge of merit,” said U.S. Attorney Mark Totten. “He chose the path of guns and drugs, which led him directly back to prison, this time for more than a decade. Let today’s sentence serve as a reminder that my office has no tolerance for armed drug dealers.”
Bible is known to law enforcement as a member of the “Belmont Gangsters” in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and refers to himself as “FedBaby,” a moniker he had tattooed on his arm as an apparent homage to his 2019 federal gun conviction.
In late 2021, just weeks after Bible was released from prison in that case, police received reports of his involvement in multiple shootings in the Kalamazoo area—two resulting in injuries, and one resulting in death. During a traffic stop in December 2019, police found him with a stolen, loaded revolver, and two digital scales with drug residue on them. On Bible’s phone, police found drug dealing text messages, along with a video showing that he’d been illegally handling firearms since the day after he left from prison.
“The Kalamazoo Valley Enforcement Team is committed to stopping violent offenders from continuing to endanger the public through outreach, enforcement, and partnerships with city, county, state, and federal partners,” said Captain Rafael Diaz of the Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety. “The sentence imposed in this case represents the culmination of many hours of work and collaboration to keep the community safe.”
This case is part of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), a program bringing together all levels of law enforcement and the communities they serve to reduce violent crime and make our neighborhoods safer for everyone. The Department of Justice reinvigorated PSN in 2017 as part of the Department’s renewed focus on targeting violent criminals, directing all U.S. Attorney’s Offices to work in partnership with federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement and the local community to develop effective, locally based strategies to reduce violent crime. This case was investigated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, the Kalamazoo Valley Enforcement Team, and the Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety, and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Patrick J. Castle and Davin Reust.
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