Judges question warrants in Kraft massage parlor sex case
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Florida appellate judges on Tuesday questioned the legality of search warrants that let police secretly video record New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and others paying for massage parlor sex, pressing a prosecutor on his contention that the warrants were legally valid.
Deputy Solicitor General Jeffrey DeSousa found himself repeatedly queried by the threejudge panel as he tried to persuade them that the warrants and searches met all constitutional protections and that they should overturn lower court rulings that barred the recordings’ use at trial.
Misdemeanor charges against Kraft, 79, and other customers would have to be dropped if those rulings stand, although felony charges against the spa owners might proceed as there is other evidence against them.
Kraft and others were charged in February 2019 in a multi-county investigation of massage parlors that included the secret installation of video cameras in the spas’ lobbies and rooms.
Police say the recordings show Kraft and other men engaging in sex acts with women and paying them.
Police say they twice recorded Kraft, a widower, paying for sex at the Orchids of Asia massage parlor. Kraft has pleaded not guilty but issued a public apology.
Judge Robert Gross, who presided at the Florida Fourth District Court of Appeal hearing, seemed taken aback by DeSousa’s contention that he and his colleagues should primarily consider the plain language of the Fourth Amendment. It says judges can issue warrants if police demonstrate probable cause of a crime, that warrants must specify the place to be searched and what can be seized.
Gross told DeSousa he seemed to be ignoring numerous rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court expanding Fourth Amendment protections since the 1960s, including some that restrict electronic surveillance by police.