LAKE HAVASU CITY – A 25-year prison term was ordered Monday for a former Desert Hills resident convicted of selling significant quantities of drugs in Mohave County. Judge Derek Carlisle also ordered David Muehlhausen, 59, to pay almost $23,000 in fines and surcharges.
Muehlhausen was not present when convicted at trial last May and he was a fugitive from justice before he was arrested in Las Vegas on December 18. Muehlhausen told the Court that he has been afflicted with addiction since 1972 but noted that he enjoyed one five-year, drug free period.
“I would just like a chance to be sober again,” Muehlhausen said. “Man, there is no better way of living.”
The trial jury found Muehlhausen guilty of sale of dangerous drug to a confidential informant on two occasions in the parking lot of a Lake Havasu City grocery store in the 3700 block of London Bridge Road. An August, 2015 transaction at that location involved a quarter-ounce of methamphetamine and a half-ounce of meth changed hands at the same location two weeks later.
The jury also convicted Muehlhausen of selling an ounce of meth at the information’s residence in the 1100 block of Riverside Drive in October, 2015. He was also convicted of selling another ounce of meth and a couple of grams of heroin to the information two weeks later at a Highway 95 convenience store.
A subsequent search of Muehlhausen’s home and vehicle netted seizure of more than four ounces of meth and another two ounces of heroin. Muehlhausen was also convicted of sale of narcotic drugs, possession of dangerous drugs for sale and possession of narcotic drugs for sale.
Judge Carlisle said Muehlhausen’s activity could not be discounted even though he was selling drugs in increments smaller than pounds. “This is still a significant amount of meth and a significant amount of heroin,” Carlisle said.
- Dave Hawkins
