All of the reasons cited by the judge were exactly on par with what everyone (minus one) posted in that thread. And with the help of
@venecol ‘s court documents which everyone (minus one) agreed exposed the operation as a clearly illegal police surveillance trick. The only thing most were hoping for was that the Florida judicial system had not built some kind of terrible precedents (which would eventually need to be overturned by SCOTUS) to allow this to happen, which we now know they did not.
The judge cited all of the clear reasons why this was illegal. And a lot of credit to many members of this forum who, despite not being lawyers, used their critical thinking skills to easily predict the outcome. This message board is probably the only place in the US outside of Kraft’s attorneys that saw this ruling coming and studied the case thoroughly. That’s awesome.
1. The warrant was built on false pretenses. This was agreed upon by virtually all forum members, that the PD had a very weak probable cause that there was a major sex trafficking operation. Venecol posted a document whereby the lead detective admits he found his “probable cause” on a website, and there was no evidence of trafficking (just misdemeanor sex acts.)
2. Common sense tells us that there are never videos like this released, so police would need to act with extreme caution to balance privacy with public safety. It was obvious from their records, length of time recording, number of people recorded, sloppy process, and lack of any ongoing evidence, that this was a massive invasion of privacy. “Expectation of privacy” was cited numerous times in the thread, and the judge used those exact words.
3. Many also brought up the traffic stop as a classic illegal tactic, which again the judge confirmed.
4. The communications between the prosecutors and defense attorneys, as Venecol provided, showed one side (Kraft) as reasonable and having a strong case and the other (prosecution) appearing to have absolutely nothing, not even appropriate responses, childish antics, and a total lack of justification for the warrant.
If there was any doubt about who gets the benefit of the doubt, the PD clearly lied from the beginning about the sex trafficking scandal and tried a pathetic PR campaign, claiming this was an “international operation” because the masseuse was Chinese (lol).
I don’t care about Kraft, but this case hits home for me. Surveillance is something that I think is an important issue for me and my kids, and it’s good anytime you expose secret campaigns like this. It was a pleasure participating in the thread with a very satisfying and just outcome. Thanks one more time to
@venecol , whose excellent research gave us all (minus one) a really good inside look at the case as it unfolded.
