Krafty team gets him off
Ex case tossed over nixed vids
New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft was on the receiving end of major legal break Thursday when prosecutors tossedallcharges against him in a sex sting case involving a Florida massage parlor.
Florida State Attorney Dave Aronberg announced the decision after an appellate court ruled last month that Jupiter police unlawfully made secret recordings of customers at the Orchids of Asia Day Spa in January 2019.
The secret surv rveillance at the day spa led to solicitation of prostitution charges against Kraft, 79, and 24 other men. Prosecutors previously said Kraft paid in cash and then removed his clothes for sex acts.
Aronberg said Thursday he had no choice but to drop the charges after Florida’s attorney general decided not to appeal the adverse ruling that suppressed the recordings.
“Without these videos, we cannot move forward with our prosecutions, and thus we are ethically compelled to drop the cases,” Aronberg said.
“The appellate court decision was disappointing, and I disagree with the result that threw out the videos for all 25 of our defendants because four other individuals also were recorded, although not continuously observed, [while] they were receiving legitimate, nonsexual massages,” he said.
Two of the four individuals were women, and the court said police should never have recorded them, so all the video must be discarded.
Aronberg said he understood the AG’s decision to stand down because fighting the appellate ruling carried the risk that Florida’s Supreme Court might go even further and ban hidden cameras entirely in cases of prostitution, human trafficking and drug trafficking.
The prosecutor said he still stood behind the decision to file the cases in the first place.
“The Orchids of Asia Day Spa was a notorious brothel in a family shopping center, right next to a game room that attracted children. Rich guys from a local country club lined up to receive sex acts throughout the day and until the place closed around midnight,” he said.
Aronberg said the owner and manager of the spa are still facing felony criminal charges.
“There was evidence of human trafficking in the overall investigation,” he said, adding that one of the massage workers at a related spa in Vero Beach said she “committed the acts against her will and was in fear.
Without naming Kraft and his billions specifically, Aronberg said “economic inequities” give wealthy defendants legal advantages in our criminal justice system. “Individuals with significant means have the ability to hire the best lawyers and investigators to dissect every decision point made by law enforcement to find a weak spot and then exploit it to achieve an acquittal or a dismissal,” he complained. “That’s just reality.”
He said there was never any “bad faith or ill motives” on the part of law enforcement, only simple mistakes caused by a lack of clear Florida law.
He said an “interesting subplot” to the case was the civil class-action lawsuit filed against” him personally by “high-powered lawyers” over the recordings.
He called the lawsuit an “abuse of the court system” that included “phantom plaintiffs” and was a “tactic to pressure our office to dispose of the criminal cases.”
Kraft’s legal team did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily News.
In a statement released last year, Kraft said he was “truly sorry” for what transpired.
“In deference to the judicial process, I have remained silent these past several weeks,” Kraft said in the statement reported by ESPN.
“I would like to use this opportunity to say something that I have wanted to say for four weeks. I am truly sorry. I know I have hurt and disappointed my family, my close friends, my co-workers, our fans and many others who rightfully hold me to a higher standard,” he said.
Kraft said he’s always “tried to do the right thing” in life.
“The last thing I would ever wanttodoisdisrespectanother human being. I have extraordinary respect for women,” he said.