Monday, March 18, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.
Daniel Ahlstrom's 18-year career as a Las Vegas justice of the peace could end this week in a Phoenix courtroom as part of a plea bargain regarding his purchasing of protected saguaro cactuses.
"I know it's not the end of the world, but it feels like it," Ahlstrom said in acknowledging that he will accept the negotiated end to the felony charges that he purchased the cactus stolen from public lands in Arizona.
"Being a judge was pretty much my whole life," he said. "I'm terribly disappointed."
The deal is termed a "deferred prosecution" and will result in the charges being dismissed or reduced to a misdemeanor if Ahlstrom keeps his nose clean for 18 months and pays a $25,000 fine. The U.S. attorney in Phoenix said she also wants Ahlstrom's judicial robe, although his alleged wrongdoing has no connection to his actions as a judge.
"I think that's disenfranchising the voters of Nevada," said the 51-year-old judge, who took an unpaid leave of absence in September on the eve of the federal indictment. Legally, the leave could have been with pay.
Ahlstorm actually will plead guilty to a felony before U.S. District Judge Earl Carroll, but he will not be legally declared to be guilty unless there is a violation of the informal probation that results.
With his voice cracking from emotion, the longtime justice of the peace said he still doesn't believe the charges are justified but said he chose to accept a plea bargain because "I don't think I can afford to roll the dice in Phoenix."
"The down side is too severe," he said, referring to the possibility that an Arizona jury might be prone to convict an out-of-state judge of a felony charge that could put him in prison.
"If the case were moved to Las Vegas, we'd be trying it," Ahlstrom said.
His attorneys have filed court motions to have the case transferred to Nevada but Carroll apparently didn't agree that Ahlstrom's two dozen or so witnesses -- some of them judges and prosecutors -- couldn't just as easily testify in Phoenix.
"That would be terribly inconvenient for the witnesses and terribly expensive for me," Ahlstrom said.
The plea bargain ending the federal case and Ahlstrom's judicial career won't necessarily end Ahlstrom's problems.
"I guess I'll go look for a job," he said. "I suppose I'll be practicing law if the state doesn't take my license."
Ahlstrom admits the status of his law license is a concern and that he will have to sit down with State Bar Association officials.
Before taking the Justice Court bench in 1978, Ahlstrom was a deputy city attorney for Las Vegas, defending the city from civil rights violation complaints.
While Ahlstrom believes he didn't do anything criminal when he bought several protected saguaro and ocotillo cactuses from a man who sold him and his friends similar cactuses several years ago, he said he understands the charges.
He was caught on audiotape by federal investigators joking and laughing about the supposed illegal nature of the cactuses being sold. Ahlstrom seemed to have no problem with the informant's pronouncement that the cactuses had been pilfered from federal lands.
Ahlstrom has said all along that he had been drinking and the words were in jest.
"The cactuses were tagged and we wrote checks to buy them," he offered as evidence that he acted lawfully despite his words.
"On the other hand, I shouldn't have been talking like that. A judge should be above that. What I did was wrong. My behavior was inappropriate. I ran my mouth."
But Ahlstrom said his job had nothing to do with the criminal case -- other than making him an attractive target.
U.S. Attorney Janet Napolitano in Phoenix was unavailable for comment last week. Napolitano is the one who decided to require Ahlstrom's robe in the deal.
Nevada has a system to investigate and discipline wayward judges, including removing them from office if necessary.
Judges convicted of felonies are automatically booted off the bench but since Ahlstrom won't legally be convicted, that requirement couldn't have been enforced.
However, the Nevada Judicial Disciplinary Commission could have considered the facts in the Arizona case in making a determination about Ahlstrom's future -- if it had been given the chance.
But Napolitano's decision to require the judgship in the federal plea bargain takes that responsibility away from Nevada officials.
Ahlstrom was named in a nine-count indictment by an Arizona federal grand jury following a sting operation by investigators from the Bureau of Land Management.
Ahlstrom's neighbor, Ronald Stanley, also was named in the indictment. He also will resolve the charges through a deferred prosecution.
Had they stood trial on the felony charges in Phoenix and been convicted, they faced the possibility of 15-year prison terms and half a million dollars in fines.
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