Drug Ranch Trial Cleared : Crime: A judge rules that the Mexican government and lower courts agreed to extradite Daniel James Fowlie on all 26 felony charges stemming from an Orange County case.

Daniel James Fowlie, who is accused of running a vast marijuana operation from an Orange County ranch, can be prosecuted on nine felony charges defense attorneys contended were never part of his extradition from Mexico, a federal judge decided Tuesday.

In a seven-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Alicemarie H. Stotler ruled that official documents and court testimony show that the Mexican government and lower courts agreed to extradite Fowlie to the United States on all 26 felony charges returned by a federal grand jury in 1988.

Stotler noted that Fowlie’s appeals to Mexico’s appellate courts to halt his extradition failed and that those courts never restricted what charges Fowlie could be prosecuted for in the United States.

”. . . Protection from extradition exists only to the extent that the surrendering country wishes,” Stotler wrote. “Moreover, the extradited party may be tried for a crime other than that for which he was surrendered if the asylum country consents.”

During hearings last week before Stotler, defense attorney David G. Haigh argued that Fowlie should not be prosecuted on charges of operating a continual criminal enterprise and illegal money transfers because the counts had no equivalent in Mexican law, a criterion for extradition.

“I have not had a chance to read the text, so I am uncertain whether an appeal is appropriate or not,” Haigh said Tuesday in response to Stotler’s order. “I will make up my mind on what to do within the next two or three days.”

Assistant U.S. Atty. Elana S. Artson, the prosecutor, contended that the Mexican government had agreed to extradite Fowlie on all counts and that Fowlie’s only remedy was in Mexican courts if he disagreed with his extradition order.

During Artson’s questioning of Hernandez, the former judge testified that he had been hired as an expert witness through one of Fowlie’s Mexican attorneys.

Although he said he has never handled a complete extradition case involving the United States, Hernandez told the court that he has been a consultant in four such cases.

U.S. authorities suspect that Fowlie, 57, operated one of the largest marijuana smuggling operations in the United States in 1982-86, using warehouses and ranches in Orange and Riverside counties.