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A volunteer for Sen. George Allen's re-election effort will avoid a campaign-related trespassing conviction so long as the volunteer stays out of legal trouble for the next 90 days, a Roanoke judge ruled Friday.

Judge Jacqueline Talevi said that although there was enough evidence to convict James Hunter Pickels of a misdemeanor trespassing charge, she would be willing to dismiss the case in three months.

Joe Stanley, a Democratic Party organizer, alleged that Pickels refused to leave an April 27 kickoff rally in Roanoke for James Webb, the Democratic candidate challenging Allen, a Republican, in November.

At the time Pickels was working as a "tracker" for the Allen campaign, following Webb around the state with a video camera.

Tracking is a fairly common campaign strategy but the practice has received attention recently after Allen called a Webb tracker "macaca" and welcomed the Fairfax County native of Indian origin to "America and the real world of Virginia." Allen later apologized.

The April 27 Webb rally was held at 114 Market St. in downtown Roanoke, a building owned by Dave "Mudcat" Saunders, a developer and Democratic activist, and Wells Development.

Saunders testified that he told Pickels repeatedly before the rally started that it was a private event on private property and that, as an owner of the property, he would have Pickels arrested if he went inside.

Pickels testified that after an exchange with Saunders he called the Allen campaign office and asked a staffer whether the building really was owned by Saunders. The staffer told him Saunders did not own the building, Pickels said. Pickels said he believed the Allen staffer over Saunders and went inside and taped.

Pickels' attorney, David Nixon, then showed the roughly five-minute tape Pickels' made while inside the building. On it, Stanley confronts Pickels several times and tells him to leave the building.

At one point he can be heard calling the police.

"We have a trespassing situation," Stanley says on the tape. "The young man's name is Hunter Pickels."

Pickels testified that once he left the building, he did not return. Stanley, however, told the court that Pickels hovered on the doorjamb after being told to leave.

Nixon, who was representing Pickels pro bono, argued that his client did not think he was trespassing because he had responded to an invitation posted on a Web site run by Virginia Democrats. Pickels noted that he had responded to similar invitations for other events throughout the state and had attended them without incident.

"He felt he had a right to be there so he has a claim of right," even though he was mistaken, Nixon told the court.

After the trial Pickels said he behaved well while tracking the Webb campaign.

"I never tried to overstep any bounds," he said. "It just seems petty to go through the judicial system."

Still, he said, his days of candidate tracking are probably over.

As for the building at 114 Market St., it was scheduled to host another Democratic Party event for the Webb campaign Friday evening. Stanley said he did not know whether another Allen tracker would show up.