California IN BRIEF : SANTA ANA : Ex-Judge Who Fled Drug Charge Found

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 this week. Alan A. Plaia, 48, a judge from 1979 to 1983, was taken into custody late Tuesday 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, 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. A seven-page indictment, unsealed last month, charges Plaia and two other men with conspiracy, possession of cocaine with intent to sell and distribution of cocaine.