Robert Kraft Attorneys Seek To Suppress Spa Video, Calling It 'Indiscriminate Spying'
BOSTON (CBS) – Patriots owner Robert Kraft's attorneys filed a new request for a judge to throw out video evidence in his Florida prostitution case. Kraft's defense team is also asking the judge to suppress evidence related to a traffic stop the weekend of the bust that they call unlawful.
A motion to suppress was filed Thursday in Palm Beach County. Kraft's defense team asked the court to suppress video taken inside the Orchids of Asia massage parlor in Jupiter, calling the need for video surveillance "categorically unnecessary and inappropriate."
Kraft is facing charges after he allegedly paid for sex acts inside the massage parlor on two occasions the weekend the Patriots played in the AFC Championship Game.
"Although the legal defects that infect the recordings are numerous and varied, the governmental overreach that unites them is singular and striking: Florida resorted to the most drastic, invasive, indiscriminate spying conceivable by law enforcement – taking continuous video recordings of private massages in which customers would be stripping naked as a matter of course – in order to prosecute what are at most (according to Florida's own allegations) misdemeanor offenses," the filing reads.
Defense attorneys also argued about information that was obtained during a traffic stop. When Kraft was leaving Orchids of Asia following his first visit, police pulled over the Bentley he was a passenger in and asked for his identification.
Prosecutors said when charges were filed that the traffic stop helped them identify Kraft using his driver's license. Defense attorneys argue the traffic stop was illegal.
"Because we do not live in a police state and our government answers to the rule of law, suppression of illegally-obtained evidence is the correct and essential remedy," attorneys said in the filing.
The Patriots owner was due in court on Thursday, but earlier this week waived his arraignment and pleaded not guilty. Kraft also filed a motion requesting a jury trial.