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LAS VEGAS >> The Las Vegas prosecutor who recently handled the Bruno Mars and Paris Hilton cocaine cases has been suspended after police reported watching him buy crack cocaine from a street dealer.
An arrest report released Monday states David Schubert, a deputy Clark County district attorney, was arrested a little before 5 p.m. Saturday in his white BMW sedan at a neighborhood several blocks east of the Las Vegas Strip known for drug sales and violent crimes.
Schubert, 47, was free Monday pending a May 19 court appearance on felony conspiracy to violate the uniformed controlled substance act and cocaine possession charges. He could not immediately be reached for comment, and it was not clear whether he had a lawyer representing him.
District Attorney David Roger said Schubert, a 10-year veteran who prosecuted several high-profile cases and served as DA liaison to a federal drug task force for the last two years, was suspended pending his resignation or dismissal.
"It doesn’t make a lick of sense to me that someone who knows the dangers of illegal drugs would allegedly use them," Roger told The Associated Press. "Hopefully, he’ll do the right thing and resign."
Schubert’s prosecution will be handled by the state attorney general’s office, and investigators will review cases and investigations in which Schubert had been involved, Roger said.
"I don’t think this will have any effect on cases he’s prosecuted," Roger said. "I’m more concerned about the investigations. He has assisted detectives in many investigations over those two years."
Spokeswoman Edie Cartwright said Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto’s office had not yet received the case.
Schubert was stopped by police after officers watched a man get in his car, accept money, go into an apartment complex and return with a substance later determined to be crack cocaine, police said.
The man, identified as Raymond Streeter, 43, tried to run when police stopped Schubert’s car, but was apprehended. Streeter hung up when reached Monday by cellphone.
He told police in a recorded interview that Shubert, whom he knew by the name "Joe," had his cellphone number and that he had been buying drugs in the neighborhood for the last six or seven months.
Roger told the Las Vegas Review-Journal he was notified almost immediately after the arrest and worked with detectives to secure warrants for a blood sample from Schubert and for searches at his two Las Vegas homes.
David Chesnoff, the Las Vegas attorney who represented both Hilton and Mars, declined to say whether he thought Schubert’s arrest tainted criminal cases he handled.
"I believe in the presumption of innocence," Chesnoff said, and repeated comments he first made to the Review-Journal.
"He’s always been a professional and always treated me with respect, so I wish him the best."
Hilton, 30, pleaded guilty in September to misdemeanor cocaine possession and obstruction charges and was sentenced to a year of probation after 0.8 grams of cocaine was found in her handbag after a traffic stop. The celebrity socialite and her boyfriend, former Las Vegas nightclub mogul Cy Waits, were arrested Aug. 27 after an officer reported a "vapor trail" of marijuana smoke wafting from their Cadillac Escalade on the Las Vegas Strip. Waits is due for trial later this year.
Mars, a Grammy award-winning pop singer whose real name is Peter Hernandez, is serving a year of probation in a bid to clear his record of a felony cocaine possession conviction. He has acknowledged having 2.6 grams of cocaine when he was arrested in a bathroom early Sept. 19 after a nightclub performance at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.
Schubert is a graduate of the Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He was admitted to the State Bar of Nevada in 2001. Roger said Schubert began as a law clerk in the district attorney’s office in December 2000.
Among other high-profile cases Schubert handled was the conviction of Steven Frances Zegrean for opening fire with a handgun inside the New York-New York casino early July 6, 2007, wounding four people. Zegrean died in prison last May.
