Associated Press Published

Former Pratt Mayor Given Probation for Drug Charges

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A former West Virginia mayor has been given probation after he was charged with selling prescription pills.

The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports a federal judge sentenced former Pratt Mayor Gary Allen Fields on Thursday to three years of probation, as part of a plea agreement Fields had made with prosecutors.

Sixty-eight-year-old Fields had previously pleaded guilty in Charleston to distribution of oxycodone after he admitted to selling the pills to a Kanawha County Sheriff’s Office informant in April 2015.

He was indicted in June, about a week before he lost his re-election bid.

After two previous arrests in 2013 and 2014, residents petitioned for Fields’ removal from office. In 2014, a three-judge panel appointed by the state Supreme Court rejected the petition, deciding not to remove him from office.