Jury: Officer derailed investigation

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - A federal jury Thursday afternoon convicted a former Albuquerque police officer of tipping off his friend, who was the target of an undercover investigation.

Brad Ahrensfield now faces up to 20 years behind bars for obstruction of justice.

It took jurors about 24 hours to come to a unanimous decision that Ahrensfield knew he was undermining the investigation when he told his friend the cops were watching him and his used car dealership.

In April a jury acquitted Ahrensfield of lying to the FBI but could not reach a verdict on the obstruction charge. His retrial started Monday.

During the trail federal prosecutors said Ahrensfield told his friend last year that police and the FBI suspected drugs and stolen goods were being peddled out of his business.

Ahrensfield was a police officer at the time all of this went down. He resigned earlier this year.

Ahrensfield said he did not see the guilty verdict coming.

“It was quite surprising actually," Ahrensfield said outside the courthouse. "We didn’t think it was going to go that way, but, you know, that’s how it goes."

Ahrensfield has said all along he did this to alert his friend that there may be something shady going on at his business and to protect his own son who worked at the dealership at the time.

After the verdict U.S. Attorney Ken Gonzalez released a statement saying Ahrensfield went from enforcing the law to crossing it and warned he will not hesitate to prosecute dirty cops.

Ahrensfield will be sentenced sometime in the next 90 days.