Judge cuts Alabama steroids dealer's sentence

Last week, a federal judge in Mobile reduced a steroids dealer’s prison sentence to probation.

Ashley Dewayne Rivers was sentenced by Chief U.S. District Judge William Steele in January to five months in prison for conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute anabolic steroids.

From Blog.al.com:

The Monroe County doctor, who pleaded guilty in the case, received a probation sentence last month. Vann’s filing offers no details about Rivers’ cooperation. It asks that Steele reduce the defendant’s sentence to five years’ probation.
The motion for a reduced sentence came just hours after Steele had denied a request by defense attorney James Robinson to change the sentence to probation. Steele wrote in his order that he lacked jurisdiction to change the punishment. That had to come from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
In his letter to Steele, Robinson asked that his client be allowed to serve his sentence on probation so that he could work and help support his wife, their four children and his handicapped brother.

The judge however agreed to a request by the U.S. Attorney’s Office to change the sentence to five years’ probation.