March 7, 1997

Bill Kenerly
District Attorney
PO Box 4559
232 N. Main St.

Salisbury, NC 28149-4559

Reference: Thomas Michael Jones

Dear Mr Kenerly:

As you know, Billy Torbush has been released from jail and is in intensive drug therapy. Hopefully, this treatment center will provide young Billy with the discipline to resist his recent and inexplicable loss of respect for other people's property. Unfortunately in the web in which Billy's troubles has been caught in, so has my son Tommy who allegedly attempted to assist Billy in cashing Bill's checks.

In speaking with Bill Torbush, he suggested that I contact you to determine what your position will be on my son's felony charge. Hopefully, since Bill is not pressing charges against my son and his goal of getting his son ,Billy into drug therapy has been reached, the State's charges against Tommy can be reduced or dropped.

Tommy is 19 years old and is currently working with me at Granite Knitwear. While I make no excuse for his behavior I can assure you that it is not in the State's best interest to press for a felony conviction of my son.

 Sincerely,

Mike Jones

(for God sakes..if your kid is in trouble. Don't bail him out. At this particular time, Tommy had just started on his heroin addiction. If he had sat in jail for a couple of weeks, it wouild have helped him from getting hooked and given him time to really think about the direction his life was headed in. As a father, this is your worst nightmare..but you gotta do it, or like me you may end up asking God for forgiveness; just about everyday in your life.)