Deputy D.A. Cleared on Cocaine Charge

Investigators have cleared a deputy district attorney of charges that he was working while under the influence of cocaine.

Schuyler Sprowles, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office, said Tuesday that the state attorney general’s office had decided not to prosecute Joel T. Kornfeld, 25, who was arrested by sheriff’s deputies last month on the misdemeanor charge of being under the influence of cocaine while on duty at Malibu Municipal Court.

Kornfeld was arrested after arousing the suspicions of two deputies with whom he was meeting to discuss the upcoming prosecution of a marijuana case.

Stephen Sadowsky, a lawyer for Kornfeld, said his client was suffering from an inflation of the nostrils caused either by allergies or a cold at the time of his arrest.

Sprowles said Kornfeld will remain suspended without pay pending a review by the district attorney’s office of the medical documentation Sadowsky presented to attorney general’s investigators.