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Judge's son gets 60 days for marijuana
Thomas Locke sentenced for selling to agent
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The son of General Sessions Judge Bill Locke will serve two months in jail for selling marijuana to an undercover agent last year.The youth, Thomas D. Locke, 18, entered a guilty plea before Special Judge Buddy Perry to marijuana charges and was ordered to serve 60 days of a three-year sentence. He must also pay a $750 drug fine and remain on supervised probation for the three-year term once he is released from jail.Locke was indicted in November after he was caught in a drug sting earlier in the year. While the young Locke had made the illegal drug deal while his father was actively running for General Sessions judge, charges were not filed until the drugs he sold were analyzed and confirmed positive for marijuana.According to District Attorney General Lisa Zavogiannis, waiting to charge drug offenders in a sealed indictment once drug analysis is completed, as was done in the case of Locke, is nothing unusual.“This is something that is commonly done,” Zavogiannis said, noting that while her office was not involved in the case the delay in bringing charges was apparently not a case of playing favorites since the “large majority” of undercover buys are resolved by sealed indictments.Judge Locke, himself a veteran prosecutor, agreed his son’s case was treated “like any other case” would be treated in his court.