Former prosecutor returns to Las Vegas, in jail

Former prosecutor David Schubert is back in Las Vegas and in custody at the Clark County Detention Center.

His lawyer, Louis Schneider, said the Nevada attorney general's office told him Thursday that Schubert had been brought back in custody from San Diego.

Detention center records show that Schubert is at the facility.

Schubert was arrested at the Mexican border Sept. 30 while re-entering the United States after a national law enforcement alert had been put out for his arrest.

Schneider said the attorney general's office is seeking to revoke Schubert's probation, which means Schubert might have to serve a 16- to 40-month prison sentence on the drug conviction.

District Judge Carolyn Ellsworth has set an Oct. 22 revocation hearing.

Schubert, who prosecuted the drug cases of celebrities Paris Hilton and Bruno Mars, lost his job as a Clark County chief deputy district attorney after he was arrested for buying cocaine in 2011. He later pleaded guilty, and last month the Nevada Supreme temporarily suspended Schubert from practicing law.

Schubert failed to surrender in court Sept. 21 to serve a nine-month jail term as part of his probation and was in Mexico until he was taken into custody at the border.

While a fugitive, a photo appeared on Schubert's Facebook page of an empty beach with the note: "Thank you all so much for the birthday wishes! All is well. Here is a present for you." The photo appeared the day of Schubert's 49th birthday.

Several of his friends, some of them defense attorneys, communicated with Schubert through Facebook while he was a fugitive and urged him to come back to Las Vegas.

Schneider said Schubert, a 10-year prosecutor, had a "momentary lapse of judgment" when he fled and was on his way back to face his punishment at the time U.S. border agents took him into custody.

Schneider said he is hoping to persuade Ellsworth to reinstate the original conditions of probation and allow Schubert to serve the nine-month term at the detention center, rather than the maximum 40-month term in the Nevada prison system.

"Dave's life literally will be in danger if he goes to prison because he's prosecuted many big drug traffickers who are spending life sentences there," Schneider said.

Before Schubert was to surrender on Sept. 21, he boarded a morning flight to San Diego and was thought to have walked across the border to Tijuana.

His girlfriend admitted that she drove him to McCarran International Airport that morning, according to a Nevada Parole and Probation Division report.

The girlfriend, who was not identified, told officers Schubert planned to cross the border after he arrived in San Diego.

Las Vegas police traced Schubert's cellphone to within a quarter-mile of the border on Sept. 21.

"This information would add credence to the notion that the subject was fleeing the USA," the report said, adding it considered Schubert an "absconder."

A later Parole and Probation Division report said border agents arrested Schubert coming into the country after they checked his identification and found that he was a wanted man. Schubert spent time at the San Diego county jail until his return here.

Contact Jeff German at jgerman@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-8135.