The news media soon will receive copies of videos from a prostitution sting involving New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft after nude images are blurred, Palm Beach County prosecutors said Wednesday.
Immediately following that news, attorneys for Kraft sought an emergency court order to prevent the release of the massage parlor footage, calling it an unconstitutional invasion of privacy.
The lawyers for the 77-year-old billionaire blasted the impending disclosure as “prosecutorial misconduct that is nothing short of appalling.”
Kraft, who appears on the police videos engaging in sex acts, is charged with two misdemeanor counts of solicitation of prostitution from his January visits to the Orchids of Asia Spa in Jupiter. He was ensnared in an investigation that also led to charges against 24 other men and three women who either ran the business or worked there.
Detectives, acting on a court-approved “sneak-and-peek” warrant, had planted secret cameras in the massage parlor and continuously recorded activity inside private rooms for five days.
Later, the police chief and State Attorney Dave Aronberg told reporters the investigation concerned suspicions of human trafficking activity at the massage parlor. Last Friday, however, prosecutors told a judge they had no evidence of human trafficking.
A part-time Palm Beach resident, Kraft has pleaded not guilty and demanded a trial. His attorneys have condemned the police investigation as illegal, and called for the videos and other evidence to be sealed and not used against him.
“Mr. Kraft has an obvious and profound stake in any potential disclosure of the sensitive materials at issue, which, among other things, depict him naked,” his lawyers wrote Wednesday.