Cop asks judge to toss pics
Images, texts on ex-officer’s cell key in his trial, prosecutors say
A former Davie cop of the year accused of threatening to release nude pictures and videos of his ex-girlfriend asked a Broward judge on Wednesday to block any jury from ever seeing what was on his cellphone.
James Krey, 40, was arrested in 2015 after his exgirlfriend, who is also a Davie officer, complained to internal affairs investigators that he was sending text messages telling her to leave Davie and promising he would “hold back at nothing to get even.”
Krey and his ex-girlfriend had dated for 18 months before breaking up in late February 2015. On March 9, 2015, Krey allegedly told his ex-girlfriend he would send compromising pictures in a group text, and include her on it, if she did not agree to meet with him during her shift, according to arrest records.
One of the text messages
the ex-girlfriend received contained video of the couple being intimate, according to an arrest warrant.
Police brought Krey into the Davie Police Department on March 11, 2015 under the pretense that he was needed to process a DUI suspect. In reality, the Coral Springs Police Department was conducting a criminal investigation while Davie conducted an administrative review. Coral Springs had jurisdiction over the criminal case because the ex-girlfriend lived there.
After investigators told Krey he was being arrested, an internal affairs investigator took Krey’s badge and gun. Krey declined to speak to Coral Springs investigators.
But when a Davie supervisor asked Krey for the passcode to his iPhone, he said it was so his department could use it to access a phone number for Krey’s lawyer, according to court documents.
Investigators were later able to use the passcode to review Krey’s text message history.
Krey is charged with two counts of extortion and is expected to go to trial before the end of the year. He has pleaded not guilty, saying he never sent incriminating pictures or videos to anyone other than the ex-girlfriend and never threatened to send them to anyone else.
Bailey declined to suppress the disputed evidence Wednesday, largely because police did not actually search the contents of Krey’s phone until after they had obtained awarrant.
The information on the phone is crucial to the prosecution. But jurors would still be able to see that the woman received the text messages from her own phone, defense lawyer Jeremy Kroll conceded.
Krey did not speak during the hearing.
Kroll and prosecutor Chris Killoran told Bailey that they were prepared to bring the case in front of a jury in November.