Beaufort man sentenced to 12 1/2 years in federal prison after drug and gun convictions
A 33-year-old Beaufort man was sentenced this week to 12 1/2 years in federal prison after he pleaded guilty to having illegal drugs and firearms, according to court documents.
Tovorris Jenkins, 33, of Beaufort pleaded guilty in September to one count of a convicted felon in possession of a firearm and one count of possession with intent to distribute crack cocaine and powder cocaine, records show.
He was sentenced on Tuesday.
The convictions stem from two separate traffic stops, one in 2018 and the other in 2019, where authorities found drugs and guns on Jenkins, a press release from the 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office stated.
In the first traffic stop, Beaufort County Sheriff’s deputies found Jenkins with two stolen handguns, ammunition, and drug paraphernalia. One of the handguns was a personal firearm belonging to a Port Royal Police Department officer that had been stolen from his home two days earlier, said Jeff Kidd, Solicitor’s Office spokesperson.
Less than a year later, local police serving a federal arrest warrant searched Jenkins. They found two bags of crack cocaine and powder cocaine, a loaded pistol, a digital scale, and two cellphones, the news release said.
The prosecutor in the case, Special U.S. Attorney Carra Henderson, is a prosecutor with the 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office but works in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Charleston as part of a partnership between the two agencies.
