Robert Kraft wins prostitution case
Court ruled prosecutors can’t use videos in case of prostitution sting
New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft scored a knockout victory Wednesday when a Florida appeals court ruled prosecutors can’t use sex videos secretly recorded by police during a massage parlor prostitution sting early last year.
But while the closely-watched case against Kraft is effectively over, he’s still fighting to make sure those embarrassing videos never get leaked to the internet.
So immediately after the appellate court finding that the cops illegally used secret surveillance cameras, Kraft’s lawyers filed a new request in Palm Beach County Court calling for the tapes to remain sealed until ultimately destroyed.
“Given the clear and uniform terms of the judicial decisions to date, any unsealing, dissemination, release, or leak of the Videos would, under any circumstance, perpetrate flagrant, gratuitous violations of Defendant’s constitutional rights,” wrote attorneys Frank A. Shepherd, William
Burck and Alex Spiro.
“Because the ultimate disposition of the Videos should be to destroy them, consistent with the judicial consensus that law enforcement should never have obtained them as it did … the Videos must remain confidential and sealed absent further action by the Court,” the lawyers wrote, warning prosecutors that Kraft “stands resolved to enforce his legal rights to the fullest.”
The South Florida Sun Sentinel and other media outlets last year sought to obtain the videos through public records requests, arguing the public had a right to see evidence in a pending criminal case.
Wednesday’s ruling by a panel of three judges for the Fourth District Court of Appeal does not address what should happen to the videos. But the 23-page opinion agreed with Kraft’s claim that Jupiter police unlawfully recorded the part-time Palm Beach resident with his clothes off at Orchids of Asia Day Spa on Jan. 19, 2019, and Jan. 20, 2019.
In previous court filings, prosecutors have described how Kraft paid in cash and then got naked for sex acts. The videotaping at the business lasted for five days, leading to the solicitation of prostitution charges against Kraft, 79, and 24 other men.
The appeals court upheld rulings by lower courts that police improperly used socalled “sneak-and-peek” warrants to ensnare Kraft and the others.
Prosecutors had challenged those rulings, which found that the warrants violated a federal law that requires police to minimize the intrusion of the cameras and focus only on crimes. There is no applicable Florida law on silent video surveillance.
At both Orchids of Asia and a Vero Beach spa, police recorded women receiving lawful massages, even though the focus was supposed to be limited to men paying for sexual services.
“The warrants at issue did not set forth any specific written parameters to minimize the recording of innocent massage seekers, and law enforcement did not actually employ sufficient minimization techniques when monitoring the video or deciding what to record,” Judge Cory J. Ciklin wrote in Wednesday’s opinion, joined by Judges Robert M. Gross and Melanie G. May.
Beyond the legal issues, the court noted that the “innocent [spa] clients potentially live with the knowledge that nude videos of themselves are preserved on a server somewhere with unknown accessibility. In our ever increasingly digital world filled with hackers and the like, such awareness renders the surveillance a particularly severe infringement on privacy.”
The judges also made a point of highlighting “strong arguments” by two leading legal scholars who explained why such a warrant “has no place in a prostitution case and why the invasive video surveillance conducted here was unnecessary.”
On the same point, the court sharply condemned the police, calling the cameras “extreme” while noting that “strict Fourth Amendment safeguards” must be observed.
“To permit otherwise would yield unbridled discretion to agents of law enforcement and the government, the antithesis of the constitutional liberty of people to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures,” Ciklin wrote.
Law enforcement agencies originally said they were trying to target something more sinister than prostitution – suspected human trafficking at the massage parlors. They revealed how they hid recording devices during investigations of 10 spas from Jupiter to Orlando.
Officials pointed to state health department inspections suggesting that sex workers from Asia were living at the businesses.
Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg then explained there is “the cold reality that many prostitutes in cases like this are themselves victims, often lured into this country with promises of a better life.”
But his prosecutors later told Kraft’s judge that there was no evidence of human trafficking. They said they hoped the sex workers would cooperate with investigators so they could bring more serious charges, but it never happened.
Prosecutors did not say Wednesday whether they would drop the charges or try to appeal further.
“We are in the process of reviewing the opinion and will comment publicly at the appropriate time,” said Mike Edmondson, spokesman for Aronberg, whose office pursued two misdemeanor charges against Kraft.
The Florida Attorney General’s Office, which had appealed a May 2019 county court ruling favoring Kraft, also is “reviewing the ruling,” said Kylie Mason, press secretary.
In the appeal, Attorney General Ashley Moody’s office had argued the “police must be afforded greater leeway” to go after illegal activity. And they declared, “Mr. Kraft’s guilt is a virtual certainty.”
But without the video evidence, prosecutors would almost certainly be unable to revive their case against Kraft, or pursue separate felony counts against the massage parlor owner, Hua Zhang, manager Lei Wang, and two employees.
Kraft’s legal team issued a statement that praised the court’s findings, saying the case’s importance went beyond the billionaire businessman.
“This ruling protects the constitutional rights and civil liberties of all the men and women who were illegally spied on in this case,” the lawyers said. “More broadly, this ruling will further protect the civil liberties of all Americans, by helping prevent future 4th Amendment violations like those that occurred in this case.”
Tama Beth Kudman, attorney for Zhang, cheered the ruling, saying it “represents an important limitation on law enforcement and its ability to invade the privacy rights of Americans.”
Also, Wednesday’s ruling effectively ends misdemeanor cases involving about 100 men arrested in the similar Vero Beach police operation.
“We are pleased that the Florida’s Fourth District court of Appeal has ruled in our favor by affirming suppression of recordings that should never have been taken,” Kraft’s lawyers said. “In doing so, the appellate panel unanimously agreed with every judge who has examined these issues and ruled that law enforcement acted unconstitutionally when conducting their investigation.”