FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Prosecutors charging New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft with twice buying sex from massage parlor prostitutes will attempt to save their case this week by arguing to an appeals court that his rights weren’t violated when police secretly video-recorded him in the act.
Prosecutors will tell the Florida Fourth District Court of Appeal during an online hearing Tuesday that a county judge erred when he invalidated the January 2019 search warrant allowing police to install secret cameras at Orchids of Asia spa as part of an alleged sex trafficking investigation.
In this April 30, 2019, file pool photo, Karen Herzog, a Florida Department of Health inspector, shows a photo she took of beds in a room during her inspection of Orchids of Asia Day Spa, during a motion hearing in the Robert Kraft prostitution solicitation case in West Palm Beach, Fla. (Lannis Waters/The Palm Beach Post via AP, Pool, File)
The Jupiter police recordings led to misdemeanor charges against Kraft and two dozen other alleged Orchids of Asia customers.
— Kraft illegally paid for sex and is lawfully covered by the warrant, even if the justices determine police violated innocent customers’ privacy rights.
According to police, Kraft’s chauffeur drove him to Orchids of Asia on the evening of Jan. 19, 2019, where detectives recorded him engaging in a sex act with two women and then paying an undetermined amount in cash.
