Tug Rule Prosecutors Admit What They Did Was Illegal and Experts Agree. This is a Great Day for America.
Sun-Sentinel – New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft on Monday emerged the winner of yet another court order regarding video evidence from his massage parlor prostitution case.
Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Joseph Marx … found that the recordings were illegally obtained by Jupiter police at the Orchids of Asia Day Spa, because of failures in a sneak-and-peek warrant that authorized secret cameras in January and resulted in the charges.
Palm Beach County Judge Leonard Hanser made an identical ruling last week, preventing prosecutors from using the tapes in two misdemeanor solicitation of prostitution cases against Kraft, 77. …
Kraft’s lawyers on Monday argued that their case “carries great public importance” and should go directly to the appellate court as well. …
During Monday’s hearing before Judge Marx, prosecutors made a significant concession. They agreed part of the sneak-and-peek warrant was unlawful because it didn’t require police to “minimize” the covert surveillance by focusing entirely on criminal acts.
And – The prostitution sting that ensnared billionaire Robert Kraft was doomed from the get-go because of a string of law enforcement missteps, according to court observers who’ve watched the case quickly unravel.
What began as authorities’ mission to bust criminal activity in massage parlors across Florida has turned into a monumental legal victory for Kraft and others charged with soliciting prostitution. …
“This case has been bungled from the beginning, in every way,” said Joseph Tacopina, a former New York City prosecutor who recently filed a federal class-action lawsuit claiming cops violated constitutional privacy rights by using covert cameras in a Jupiter spa. …
“The whole thing was infected and illegitimate,” said Richard Kibbey, a defense attorney who represents a dozen men charged like Kraft.
Mr. Kraft. Mr. frickin’ Kraft. Only this man could walk into a spa for a handjob and walk out a champion of freedom. He got taken care of in under 15 minutes, flew on his private jet to Kansas City, won yet another Lamar Hunt Trophy and was the king of all he surveyed. And yet the most significant thing he did that day was strike a blow (an unintentional pun, but no apologies) for the rights of the individual against obtrusive and illegal government intervention into their lives.
No one could’ve seen that coming (another pun). But history is made in such ways. You can’t predict that a handie could have a positive impact on the Constitutional rights of Americans any more than you could’ve known an Indian lawyer in South Africa shivering in a train station after being beaten because he refused to leave the first-class car would free his nation from imperialism. Or that a tired woman refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus would bring equal justice to generations.
But that’s how the world changes for the good. Ordinary people refusing to go along with the status quo, standing up for their rights, and in doing so, making life better for us all. One man come in the name of love, one man come and go.
This whole fiasco should be coming to a conclusion soon. Now that we’ve got the corrupt authorities behind it all admitting they are guilty illegally spying on their own citizens, I don’t see how it can go on any longer. And when we all come out of this a little more free, a little more empowered, we’ll have Mr. Kraft to thank for it.