Ex-Judge Who Fled Drug Charges Captured in Montana : Fugitive: Alan A. Plaia, who was indicted in L.A. in September, is arrested at a dude ranch after a tip.

A former Orange County Municipal Court judge who fled the state after being indicted on cocaine charges has been captured at a luxury dude ranch in Montana, where he was known as “Uncle Al,” federal authorities reported Wednesday.

Alan A. Plaia, 48, a judge from 1979 to 1983, was taken into custody late Tuesday night by the Gallatin County Sheriff’s Drug Task Force, which had received a tip that someone at the Big Sky Resort near Bozeman was trying to obtain false identification.

Ralph Lockridge, a spokesman for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, said that during two interrogations of the suspect task force members discovered that the man they were questioning was Plaia.

The former judge is being held without bail in Gallatin County pending his return to Los Angeles. Authorities said they also confiscated Plaia’s Jeep Wagoneer, $4,000 in cash and $20,000 in gold coins that the fugitive kept in a safe deposit box.

A bench warrant was issued for Plaia on Sept. 23 after he failed to surrender during his arraignment in federal court in Los Angeles. At the time, defense attorney Robert Perry said he had not heard from his client in several weeks.

A seven-page indictment, which was unsealed last month, charges Plaia and two other men with conspiracy, possession of cocaine with intent to sell and distribution of cocaine. If convicted on all three counts, Plaia could face up to 40 years in prison.

Informants and undercover officers posing as potential customers say they repeatedly met with Plaia in 1989 and 1990 in an attempt to buy cocaine. They allege that eventually they arranged the purchase of a kilogram of the drug.

After practicing law in Newport Beach for 10 years, Plaia was appointed to the bench in September, 1979, by then Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. He resigned in 1983 to resume his law practice, but he occasionally filled in as a temporary judge in Municipal Court until 1989, when he opened a jewelry store in Corona del Mar.

Indicted along with Plaia were Grisha Moradian, 53, of Costa Mesa and David Nicol, a former Surfside man now serving a four-year term in federal prison on a separate drug conviction. They have pleaded not guilty to the charges.