Robert Kraft massage parlor video to be suppressed, judge rules

Appeals court judge upholds ruling that surveillance video violated defendants Fourth Amendment rights

Surveillance footage of New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft at a massage parlour included in a lawsuit alleging he and others solicited prostitution will not be included in evidence after a Florida appeals court ruled it violated his rights.

The Florida District Court of Appeals upheld a decision by a trial court to suppress the video, ruling the methods used violated the defendant's Fourth Amendment rights against illegal search and seizures.

"We find the trial courts properly concluded that the criminal defendants had standing to challenge the video surveillance and that total suppression of the video recordings was constitutionally warranted," the appellate judges said.

Mr Kraft and another two dozen individuals were charged with soliciting prostitution after they were recorded in secret entering a day spa in Jupiter, Florida, ABC News reports.

The team's owner and co-defendants successfully argued that their Fourth Amendment rights were violated by the secret surveillance video.

Mr Kraft has pleaded not guilty to the charges, but he did issue a public apology for his actions.

"The spa-client defendants in all of these cases had a subjective and objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in the massage parlour rooms," the appellate judges said.

Mr Kraft was filmed visiting the spa twice. After his second visit, police stopped him while he was driving away. He was then charged with two misdemeanour counts of soliciting prostitution.

The police called in a fake bomb threat to clear the day spa. While they were responding to the phoney threat, they installed hidden cameras in four of the massage rooms and in the lobby of the spa.

Detectives monitored the video feeds and recorded interactions in the spa over the course of five days.

The detectives focused on massages that were about to finish because any sexual activity generally occurred following the initial massage. According to court documents, the police recorded 25 instances of customers paying for sexual services.

"The type of law enforcement surveillance utilised in these cases is extreme. While there will be situations which may warrant the use of the techniques at issue, the strict Fourth Amendment safeguards developed over the past few decades must be observed," the judges said.