Ex-prosecutor in celebrity cases wants drug evidence tossed

A former Las Vegas prosecutor who handled the Paris Hilton and Bruno Mars cocaine cases asked a judge to throw out evidence underpinning felony drug and weapon charges against him.

William Terry, a lawyer for former Clark County Deputy District Attorney David Schubert, argued in documents filed Tuesday that police had no reason and no permission to search Schubert’s car and home or to draw blood from him after he was stopped March 19 in a neighborhood east of the Strip.

Terry declined to comment Wednesday about the filing. A hearing date was not set.

Police reported finding 0.01 grams of crack cocaine on the floor of Schubert’s car after following him for several minutes and stopping him for failing to signal a turn.

Police said they seized an unlicensed 9 mm semiautomatic handgun from the trunk and almost 100 rounds of ammunition.

Terry has compared the size of the alleged cocaine find to a pencil point. In the eight-page motion to suppress evidence, he also argued that police had no authority at the time to open the trunk.

“No attempt to get Mr. Schubert’s consent to search the vehicle was obtained, and likewise no search warrant was obtained,” Terry said.

An affidavit filed March 25 showed that a detective obtained warrants just before 10 p.m., about five hours after Schubert was stopped.

Terry also alleged that a top deputy district attorney had meddled in the investigation. In addition, the lawyer pointed to flaws in the search warrants and accused the judge who authorized the searches of bias against Schubert.

“When a magistrate … wishes members of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department ‘good luck’ as was done in this case,” Terry wrote, “it appears at least that the neutrality requirement has been abolished.”

The lawyer said he might call the search warrant judge, William Kephart, and the deputy district attorney, Chris Owens, as witnesses during a preliminary hearing.

Owens said he had not seen the court filing and declined to comment. Kephart didn’t respond to a phone message.

Nevada Deputy Attorney General Thom Gover, the prosecutor in the case, said that he was preparing a response to Terry’s motion.

Schubert, 47, a former liaison to a federal drug task force, is scheduled for arraignment Oct. 13 on drug and weapon charges that could bring more than a decade in prison if he is convicted. Terry has said Schubert intends to plead not guilty.

Police alleged officers watched a man get into Schubert’s car, accept money, go into an apartment complex and return with the substance later determined to be crack cocaine.

The man, identified as Raymond Streeter, 43, wasn’t charged in the case.

He told police in a recorded interview that Schubert had been buying drugs in the neighborhood for six or seven months.

That would encompass the time Schubert worked out an August plea deal with Hilton in a traffic stop on the Strip last summer and a February guilty plea by Mars after the Grammy-winning pop singer was arrested in September in a casino restroom.

Hilton was sentenced to a year of probation on misdemeanor cocaine possession and obstruction charges after 0.8 grams of cocaine was found in her purse.

Mars, whose real name is Peter Hernandez, is serving a year of probation to clear his record of a felony cocaine possession conviction. He acknowledged having 2.6 grams of cocaine after a performance at a Hard Rock Hotel nightclub.