Kraft, spa workers want surveillance tapes kept secret
Hearing today for Pats owner, facing two charges
Patriots owner Robert Kraft and Orchids of Asia Day Spa workers will form an unlikely alliance today in a Florida appeals court as prosecutors make a last-ditch effort in an appeal to enter into evidence last January’s secret alleged prostitution sting tapes.
Orchids of Asia owner Hua Zhang and three other spa workers, along with a man nabbed in a separate Florida prostitution sting last August, are joining the appeal hearing after Florida judges suppressed police surveillance tapes in each of their individual cases last year.
Kraft, charged in the Orchids of Asia sting, pleaded not guilty to two misdemeanor solicitation charges last February. It is unclear if he’ll appear in this morning’s Zoom hearing. Attorneys for defendants did not respond to inquiries Monday.
A Florida judge last May handed Kraft a win, ruling police surveillance of the spa last January was invasive and inappropriately recorded non-criminal massages.
Prosecutors, in a war of words with Kraft’s attorneys in a now yearlong appeal, have criticized the Patriots owner’s claims of significant Fourth Amendment violations of improper searches, and have detailed some of Kraft’s alleged activities.
“(Kraft) urges that massages should not have been recorded at any time other than the end of a massage; but the first of his offenses came at the end of a massage,” said Florida Deputy Solicitor General Jeffrey DeSousa wrote in a brief in the case. “And he insists that recording was improper when men left on their underwear at the start of a massage; but he removed his own underwear immediately.”
Kraft publicly apologized last March but did not claim innocence, and has since stayed quiet regarding the case. “I am truly sorry,” Kraft said in his statement. “I know I have hurt and disappointed my family, my close friends, my co-workers, our fans, and many other who rightfully hold me to a higher standard.”
Neither Kraft nor his counsel have indicated their preference toward a plea deal, which would reportedly include 100 hours of community service and attendance in a class regarding the dangers of prostitution. Mentions of possible human trafficking by prosecutors have since eroded in the case, as the government admitted in a hearing last year there was no evidence of trafficking at the Orchids of Asia Spa.