Lizard smuggler gets fine, probation

Ken Ritter

Saturday, Dec. 9, 2000 | 10:16 a.m.

A 31-year-old Las Vegas man found at the airport with lizards in his underwear was fined $500 and sentenced to three years' probation for smuggling.

Don D. Astorga, an auto detailer and reptile collector, offered no explanation before or after sentencing on Friday about being found with nine dead and three live lizards in his crotch at McCarran International Airport. Two of the lizards were monitors - a federally protected species.

But Astorga protested U.S. District Judge Philip Pro's order that he let federal probation and Fish and Wildlife officers check his Las Vegas home without a warrant for protected or endangered species.

"I'm sorry sir," Astorga told the judge, "if my little girl happens to go to the store with her Christmas money and buy a monitor lizard, and the Department of Probation comes over and finds it..."

"Hold on!" Pro said, raising his voice to interrupt Astorga during sentencing in what he earlier called a "bizarre" case.

The judge reminded Astorga, who had eight prior misdemeanor convictions, that he could face prison time. The nature of the previous convictions was not disclosed.

Pro told Astorga he must comply with probation requirements including four months of electronic home monitoring and substance abuse and mental health treatment. Astorga has an 8-year-old daughter, his lawyer, public defender Alexander Modaber, said.

On Sept. 6, after a three-hour non-jury trial, Pro found Astorga guilty of two felony charges: violating the Endangered Species Act by trading in monitor lizards and failing to declare the lizards to the U.S. Customs Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Astorga was arrested June 9, 1999, at the airport by a Las Vegas police detective who later testified he became suspicious about strange bulges in Astorga's crotch.

A voluntary search turned up 12 young lizards and an egg wrapped in tube socks. The longest of the animals was about 12 inches long, police said. The three that survived the airplane trip later died.

Astorga provided various accounts of where he got the animals, saying first that he obtained them in the Philippines and later that he bought them at a pet store in Los Angeles, police said.