Billionaire Drugging Probe – Phone Warrant Twist

Smartphone with OnlyFans sticker and cash on a laptop keyboard — Photo: Mehaniq / Shutterstock

When police investigations turn on whether someone was secretly drugged, the truth usually lives or dies on records gathered in the first few hours—warrants, lab draws, and messages—rather than on headlines months later. That is the real center of gravity in the Adva Lavie–Stephen Cloobeck saga: an LAPD probe that reportedly looked for ketamine in a high-profile relationship, nested inside a broader burglary-and-identity-theft case already in court.

The Short Version

LAPD sought a warrant to search Lavie’s phone while investigating whether she drugged her onetime fiancé, billionaire Stephen Cloobeck, with ketamine, according to Los Angeles Times–cited materials.
The ketamine line of inquiry sits within a larger case alleging Lavie targeted wealthy people through dating apps; she has pleaded not guilty.
In a parallel matter, prosecutors charged Cloobeck with witness tampering tied to Lavie’s case, underscoring the multi-threaded nature of the litigation.
No toxicology results or drugging charges have surfaced in public reporting; the ketamine question remains an investigation, not a proven fact.

What is actually established—and what is not

The most concrete public development is the existence of an LAPD investigation that, per a search warrant reviewed by the Los Angeles Times, examined whether Lavie drugged Cloobeck with ketamine and sought judicial approval to search her phone for evidence. ABC7 characterized the inquiry as “in connection with the Adva Lavie investigation,” the already-filed case in which prosecutors allege Lavie cultivated relationships via dating apps to steal from victims; Lavie has pleaded not guilty. This is not a rumor attached to an otherwise clean slate; it is an investigative thread inside an active, multi-victim prosecution.

At the same time, the ketamine allegation has not matured into a public charge. None of the reporting presents toxicology data, a charging document for drugging, or sworn medical records tying Cloobeck to ketamine exposure. The phrasing remains investigative—“are investigating whether”—which is exactly the correct legal status to ascribe to it: a lead being run, not a fact proven.

How drug-facilitated crime investigations work

Drug-facilitated crimes hinge on timing and targeting. Ketamine is fast-acting and rapidly cleared; detectability depends on how quickly specimens are collected and whether the lab employs targeted assays that look for ketamine and its metabolite norketamine. Routine toxicology panels often miss it. That is why cases frequently feature a long public afterlife of allegation without clinical confirmation; the window for durable forensic proof may have closed before anyone realized they needed it.

Investigators therefore triangulate: they pursue communications (texts, DMs, delivery logs) that indicate acquisition or discussion of ketamine; reconstruct timelines of observed impairment matched against the drug’s pharmacology; and seek witness accounts to anchor events. A well-constructed warrant for a phone search in such a case typically aims at exactly those data—purchase receipts, chat references, location trails, and any corroborating media that narrow who had access to what, when.

The larger criminal context around the same relationship

Prosecutors in Los Angeles County have accused Lavie of a pattern scheme—cultivating relationships with wealthy people, then stealing cash, watches, and luxury goods. She has pleaded not guilty, and the defense has challenged the prosecution narrative through motions and diversion arguments, which a judge denied; a separate competency evaluation has been reported in related coverage. Against that backdrop, authorities also charged Cloobeck with witness tampering, alleging he tried to dissuade or prevent witnesses in Lavie’s case from testifying; he, too, has pleaded not guilty. Whatever one concludes about the ketamine question, the presence of active, adversarial proceedings on both sides confirms a live legal battlefield rather than a resolved account.

This duality matters for interpretation. The theft case’s existence does not prove a drugging occurred; conversely, the witness-tampering case does not negate the theft allegations. Each theory stands or falls on its own evidentiary legs. Still, the overlap in actors, dates, and communications means discovery in one proceeding can surface material relevant to the other—a common dynamic in complex relationship-driven crime investigations.

Where reasonable skepticism belongs

Skepticism is earned by evidentiary gaps, not by tone. On ketamine, the critical gaps at this stage are obvious: no laboratory confirmation in the public record and no drugging charge. That is a meaningful absence, particularly given ketamine’s pharmacokinetics and the need for targeted testing; without prompt specimen collection, even real exposure can go undocumented. Sensational framing—“wild billionaire drugging probe”—does not change that calculus; a search warrant is not a conviction, and the phrasing attributed to LAPD remains conditional by design.

On the other hand, dismissing the entire line of inquiry would be glib. Judges do not sign search warrants in serious felony matters without some articulated basis for probable cause. The LAPD’s move to interrogate a phone for ketamine-related evidence signals investigators believed digital artifacts might exist—discussions, procurement, coordination—that are discoverable and testable against independent facts like credit card logs and location data.

A warrant obtained by 7 On Your Side Investigates reveals new details in the case against ex-OnlyFans model Adva Lavie, including a reference to a ketamine investigation involving her former fiancé Stephen Cloobeck, a wealthy real estate developer who briefly ran for governor of… pic.twitter.com/lSdPkwOoVi

— ABC7 Eyewitness News (@ABC7) September 18, 2026

How investigators could close the loop

Short of a time-stamped toxicology report, the strongest substitute is a convergent record: messages about ketamine acquisition coinciding with deliveries or pharmacy events, location pings placing the parties together, witness descriptions of acute dissociation or immobilization consistent with ketamine’s profile, and any contemporaneous medical contact. Even better is physical evidence—residue in drinkware or packaging with intact chain of custody. Absent that, prosecutors often lean on timeline consistency and admissions in communications, though such cases are inherently harder to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.

The defense, for its part, will stress voluntariness, alternative causes of impairment, and the lack of definitive biological confirmation. If any party used ketamine consensually at other times, that history can complicate causation and intent analyses. The law tends to be unforgiving of ambiguity on the central actus reus—surreptitious administration—which is why many drug-facilitated crime investigations never ripen into charges even when prosecutors believe misconduct occurred.

Why this case is a Rorschach for celebrity-crime coverage

Stories that braid status, sex, and money invite narrative inflation. Here, genuine public records—theft charges; witness-tampering charges; a reported phone-search warrant—sit beside an unproven pharmacological allegation that is easy to headline and hard to adjudicate. The responsible posture is simple: treat the ketamine issue as an open investigative thread supported by a lawful warrant, not as established fact; follow the theft and tampering cases on their own records; and discount rhetoric untethered to filings, lab reports, or authenticated communications.

If the ketamine theory is right, the proof will almost certainly emerge from documents already in government hands—extracted messages, purchase logs, or sealed medical attachments—not from punditry. If it is wrong, the silence of toxicology and the absence of charging will tell that story by attrition. Either way, the lesson travels beyond these two people: in drug-facilitated crime, science and procedure decide more than spectacle ever does.