Palo Alto courthouse escapee sentenced

SAN JOSE >> An armed robbery suspect who escaped from the Palo Alto courthouse in late 2017 and was later found at an East Bay hotel with a loaded handgun was sentenced Thursday to more than four years in prison, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

In November, John Penn Bivins Jr., 49, formerly of East Palo Alto, pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm. Bivins, according to his plea agreement, admitted he had a Smith & Wesson 9mm pistol loaded with 15 bullets at the Fairmont

Inn in San Leandro, where a U.S. Marshals Serviceled task force arrested him on Nov. 26, 2017.

Federal prosecutors said Bivins also admitted the pistol was stolen and that he had escaped from the courthouse 20 days earlier. At the time, Bivins and Tramel McClough, 46, of East Palo Alto, were being prosecuted for the armed robbery of a Sunnyvale Verizon store.

On Nov. 6, 2017, Bivins and McClough apparently used a smuggled key to get out of their restraints and ran out of the courthouse through an unmonitored door. They got into a late-1980s Toyota Corolla,

which drove them a few blocks to a waiting UHaul van.

Authorities tracked the duo to Stockton on Nov. 22, 2017, and arrested McClough following a vehicle pursuit. When McClough, the driver, got out and ran into a Walmart, Bivins climbed behind the wheel and drove away, but not before drawing fire from a CHP officer.

Bivins is in state custody and his 51-month sentence will run concurrently with any anticipated state court sentence arising from an escape charge, federal prosecutors said.