SALON

Wednesday, Nov 7, 2012 10:45 PM UTC

Ex-prosecutor gets prison deal in Vegas drug case

By

Topics: From the Wires,

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A former prosecutor-turned-fugitive who once handled the high-profile Las Vegas drug cases of celebrities Paris Hilton and Bruno Mars was sentenced Wednesday to a reduced term of 12 to 30 months in prison term following his return from Mexico.

David Schubert, 49, fled there to avoid jail after pleading guilty in a crack cocaine possession case. In court Thursday, he didn’t apologize as he stood for sentencing before Clark County District Court Judge Carolyn Ellsworth, defense attorney Louis Schneider said.

“He feels as if he shouldn’t have even been there,” Schneider said later.

Instead, Schubert told the judge he felt he’d been treated exceptionally harshly for his March 2011 arrest with $40 in rock cocaine and an unregistered handgun in his car.

Ellsworth revoked a sentence that she imposed in February that would have Schubert serve nine months in county jail as a requirement of probation. But she also cut his prison term from a possible 16 to 40 months, gave Schubert 40 days credit for time served and ordered him enrolled in a prison substance abuse program.

Schneider said Schubert was grateful for the reduced sentence and opportunity for treatment and said he hopes to resume practicing law in the future. Schubert’s law license was suspended by the state Supreme Court just before he fled to Mexico on Sept. 21. He was arrested at the border Sept. 30 while re-entering the U.S. after spending time in the Mexican coastal resort towns of Rosarito Beach and Ensenada.

Thom Gover, the deputy Nevada state attorney general who prosecuted the case, called Schubert’s revised sentence appropriate.

“If the interest of justice and rehabilitation is the goal, one to 2 1/2 years is enough,” Gover said.

The sentence was first reported Wednesday by the Las Vegas Review-Journal (http://bit.ly/VEiAxh ).

Schubert resigned from the Clark County district attorney’s office after his March 2011 arrest and pleaded guilty in September 2011 to felony unlawful possession of a controlled substance. Felony conspiracy, weapon and drug use charges were dropped under a plea deal that avoided trial.

Schubert expected mandatory probation and a chance to wipe the felony conviction from his record. But Ellsworth rejected the plea deal in February, berating Schubert as “a disgrace to his oath as a prosecutor and a lawyer” and declaring that Schubert wouldn’t get special treatment.

Among the high-profile cases Schubert handled were plea deals that spared both Hilton and Mars from serving jail time.

Hilton, 30, was arrested in August 2010 after police said 0.8 grams of cocaine fell out of her handbag following a Las Vegas Strip traffic stop. The celebrity socialite successfully completed a year of probation on misdemeanor cocaine possession and obstruction charges.

Mars, 26, was cleared in January of a felony cocaine possession charge after staying out of trouble for a year and meeting other conditions of a plea deal. The Grammy-winning pop star, whose real name is Peter Hernandez, acknowledged in court in February 2011 that he had 2.6 grams of cocaine after a performance at a Hard Rock Hotel & Casino nightclub.

Schubert told the Review-Journal during a jailhouse interview last month that he was ready to accept responsibility in his case.

“I did what I did, and I accept the consequences,” he said. “But I don’t feel I was treated fairly by the system.”

More Ken Ritter.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations