A 35-year-old man who ditched a gun during a foot chase through a South Baltimore alley two years ago is heading to federal prison for 11 years, after investigators discovered the weapon had been stolen from a Baltimore Police officer nearly two decades earlier. Alonzo Plenty was sentenced Tuesday for drug trafficking and firearm charges tied to his March 2024 arrest in the Brooklyn neighborhood, capping a case that also revealed he tried to smuggle dozens of Suboxone strips into the city's booking facility.
U.S. District Judge Stephanie A. Gallagher handed down the sentence during a hearing in federal court in Baltimore, ordering Plenty to serve three years of supervised release once he's out, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Plenty had been convicted on three federal felony counts: possession with intent to distribute controlled substances, possession of a gun by a prohibited person, and possession of a gun in furtherance of drug trafficking. As WBFF first reported, authorities said Plenty was already on federal supervised release stemming from a prior conviction for possession of a firearm and ammunition by a prohibited person when he was spotted armed again.
An Armed Man on Pontiac Avenue
Authorities said Plenty was observed displaying the characteristics of an armed person while walking near the 800 block of Pontiac Avenue on March 5, 2024. Law enforcement agents gave chase, and Plenty fled on foot down an alley before attempting to discard a gun during the pursuit, per WBFF's reporting. Officers recovered the weapon, and officials later determined it had been reported stolen from a Baltimore Police Department officer back in 2006 — meaning it had circulated for 18 years before turning up in Plenty's hands, according to the Justice Department.
The 800 block of Pontiac Avenue sits in Brooklyn, a South Baltimore community that has been a focus of the city's Group Violence Reduction Strategy, an initiative aimed at dismantling open-air drug markets and armed street crime, as Hoodline has reported on Curtis Bay crackdowns nearby. During the arrest, officials said they found 32 individual baggies of cocaine base, 26 gel caps containing a counterfeit controlled substance, $3,255 in cash, and two cell phones, per the same WBFF account.
Caught Trying to Ditch Suboxone at Central Booking
Plenty was taken to the Baltimore Central Booking and Intake Center, where the case took another turn. Federal prosecutors said that during a routine strip search, Plenty attempted to flee and pulled a clear plastic bag from his underwear, trying to discard it into a holding cell. Authorities recovered the bag and found it contained 50 Suboxone, or buprenorphine, strips — a Schedule III controlled substance, according to the Justice Department's account of the search.
The attempted smuggling fits a pattern federal officials have flagged nationally. A United States Sentencing Commission study found that buprenorphine-based products like Suboxone accounted for nearly 48% of all federal drug contraband cases in correctional facilities between fiscal years 2019 and 2023, a trend Hoodline noted in its coverage of a failed drone drug drop at a Utah prison. The paper-thin strips are in high demand behind bars, driving their elevated illicit value inside detention centers.
A History of Violence and a Mandatory Minimum
Plenty's record includes an earlier violent-crime allegation in South Baltimore. In June 2021, he was arrested as a fugitive from Virginia and charged with attempted first-degree murder, assault, and firearm offenses connected to a shooting on the 900 block of East Patapsco Avenue, according to Baltimore Witness. That outlet reported prosecutors offered a plea deal in 2022 for conspiracy to commit assault, though the trial was delayed after defense counsel contracted COVID-19.
Under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c), possessing a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime carries a mandatory minimum of five years in prison, and that term must run consecutively to any sentence for the underlying narcotics charge, per the Legal Information Institute. That statutory framework helps explain the length of Plenty's combined federal term.
Multi-Agency Case, Citywide Enforcement Push
U.S. Attorney Kelly O. Hayes announced the sentence alongside leadership from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Baltimore Police Commissioner Richard Worley, and Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services Secretary Carolyn J. Scruggs, according to the Justice Department's release. The coordinated announcement reflects how federal drug and firearm cases in Baltimore typically draw on prosecutors, local police, and state correctional authorities working together.
Plenty's case adds to a string of lengthy federal sentences Hoodline has tracked in the region this summer, including a Randallstown man's 11-year fentanyl and firearms sentence. The Baltimore Police Department reported seizing 1,189 illegal firearms, including 123 untraceable ghost guns, and making 743 gun-related arrests citywide during the first seven months of 2026, underscoring the scale of the ongoing enforcement effort in neighborhoods like Brooklyn.
