Hearing delayed in serial rape case

By Matt Pordum

Friday, Jan. 14, 2005 | 8:47 a.m.

A 38-year-old man who has been in custody since August on charges he committed a series of rapes in the late 1990s in the East Flamingo Road area will have to wait another 19 days for his preliminary hearing because two police officers were out-of-town on Thursday and unable to testify.

Deputy District Attorney Lisa Luzaich Rego said the crime scene investigator who discovered the DNA link that led to the charges against Dushon Green was unable to testify at Green's hearing because he was attending a police conference and the criminalist who tested the DNA was also out of the jurisdiction, on vacation.

Luzaich Rego asked that the preliminary hearing be postponed to Feb. 1. Green's attorney, Michael Gowdey, took issue with the rescheduling, saying he was prepared and ready to go forward Thursday.

But Luzaich Rego pointing out the defense previously had been granted three requests to reschedule the hearing, and she said the DNA evidence was the focus of the case and required the crime scene analyst and criminalist to testify.

Detectives issued an arrest warrant for Green after DNA evidence allegedly linked him to five sexual assaults between December 1996 and March 1998. Investigators with the Criminal Apprehension Team took him into custody at his home on Cambridge Street near Desert Inn Road and Maryland Parkway.

Green is being held on $620,000 bail on 34 counts of sexual assault-related crimes.

After Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Ann Zimmerman granted the postponement, Gowdey asked her to consider releasing Green on his own recognizance because with the continuance his client will have been in custody six months without a preliminary hearing.

Zimmerman denied the request.