Kingsport felon sentenced to 21 years for possessing firearm

KINGSPORT, Tenn. (WJHL) — A Kingsport man was sentenced to 21 years in prison on Monday after he was found to be a convicted felon in possession of a firearm.

Eric Eugene Robinson, 55, will serve 262 months in prison and must be on supervised release for five years after his sentence, according to a release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Tennessee.

The release said Robinson was sentenced Monday in Greeneville after being convicted by a federal jury in April.

Evidence presented during the two-day conviction trial described how officers surveilled Robinson at a Dorothy Street residence in Kingsport in Sept. 2020. The surveillance found that Robinson was in possession of a gun while being a known convicted felon, and a search warrant was carried out by the Kingsport Police Department (KPD), according to the release.

The release said KPD officers discovered a 9 mm pistol and a loaded magazine under a couch in the living room of the residence. A Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) agent reportedly testified that the gun seized was manufactured in Brazil and imported to Bainbridge, Georgia before eventually arriving in Tennessee.

“Kingsport Police Department officer Mike Slater, formerly a Task Force Officer assigned
to the ATF, led the investigation with assistance from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and
the ATF,” the release states.

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