MOBILE, Alabama -- A bit player in a massive Ecstasy ring pleaded guilty here to a federal drug charge last week after a judge found him competent to stand trial.
Since Robert Lee Locke, 27, already has been locked up since April of last year and his expected punishment is only 6 months to a year in prison, U.S. District Judge Kristi DuBose indicated she likely will let him out of jail until his sentencing in December. The judge set another hearing for Tuesday in order to give the U.S. Probation Office a chance to make sure that the home of the Prichard man’s mother is suitable.
Psychiatrists from the federal prison system earlier had said that Locke had difficulty understanding the nature and the consequences of the charges against him because of a low IQ and memory deficiencies. The judge ordered him to undergo treatment, after which prison doctors pronounced him fit to stand trial.
The charge against Locke stems from a long-running probe into Mobile County’s Ecstasy trade stretching back nearly a decade. Police arrested him in August 2005 after recording a phone conversation he had with an admitted drug dealer. Officers found seven Ecstasy pills and a small amount of marijuana when they searched his car.
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