A federal judge on Thursday sentenced the former mayor of Pratt to spend three years on probation for selling prescription pills.
Gary Allen Fields, 68, previously pleaded guilty in Charleston to distribution of oxycodone. He admitted to selling six 15-milligram oxycodone pills to a police informant on April 23, 2015.
U.S. District Judge Johnston went along with a plea agreement Fields had made with prosecutors. Fields agreed last year to plead guilty in exchange for the three years on probation. The maximum sentence the charge carries is 20 years.
Johnston didn't force Fields to pay any fine.
A confidential informant for the Kanawha County Sheriff's Office went to Fields' home in Pratt, where six pills were purchased.
Fields was indicted on June 3, about a week before he lost his re-election bid. He had said that he would step down as mayor, win or lose, but received only three votes compared to then-councilman Eric Holcomb's 78.
In August 2013, Fields was arrested and charged with simple possession in Kanawha Magistrate Court after pills were allegedly found in the city-owned vehicle he was driving during a traffic stop. In November 2014, Fields was arrested and charged with driving under the influence of a controlled substance after police pulled him over in Chesapeake.
Until last year, Fields had resisted calls for his resignation. In 2014, a three-judge panel appointed by the state Supreme Court decided not to remove him from office after townspeople filed a petition asking that he be thrown out.
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