Robert Kraft

I was with you until the point about Kraft not helping the providers. Someone's wealth does not obligate them to pay for services of others.

@fun: He referred to them as friends of his. I believe anyone should help their friends, whether they have money or not. Having money makes it a lot easier. Sometimes, practically effortless.

I don't know why @fun is lit up like a hyper link. That was not my intent.

I'm confused. What he did helped all of them, no? The video tapes were thrown out. Not only were all of the clients' cases dropped, but I also read that the same happened for the felony charges against four of the women. I did also hear that a couple of women pleaded to reduced charges, but that there was no jail time for them.

Rightfield, do you have a link to something that says different?

Let me double check. I hope you are right, and my memory is wrong.

rickdugan: You appear to be correct. My memory was the women were the only ones convicted of anything in the case, but they seem to have been punished pretty lightly.

And those women very well could have avoided punishment altogether if they had held out. The police really screwed the pooch on this one by using a "sneak and peak" warrant trying to catch consenting adults engaging in misdemeanor paid sex.

That type of warrant is normally reserved for the most serious types of criminals, like terrorists or large scale drug traffickers. They knew that they were crossing a line by using this type of warrant to record naked patrons getting massages (not all were even getting sex). But they were used to getting away with this shit because most people just pled out to minor charges for one or multiple of these reasons: (1) they couldn't afford to effectively fight the charges; (2) they wanted to avoid embarrassing publicity; and/or (3) prosecutors threated more serious charges if they didn't roll over.

Then they caught a bigger fish than they could easily handle. Oops. What made it worse is that they were bragging about it to whoever would listen. Once there was nothing more to lose on the publicity front, Kraft had every incentive to fight as a conviction could have had consequences with the NFL.

Then the bad behavior of the Sherriff's office started to surface prior to the trial and it became increasingly clear that they crossed some lines in targeting Kraft and obtaining the warrant. But instead of dropping the charges then and there, these arrogant cops and prosecutors actually started threatening Kraft with a public release of the video and added charges if he wouldn't plead out. These dipshits apparently didn't realize that they had already backed him into a corner early on.

Kraft's willingness to fight this helped not only everyone who had the good fortune to ride his coattails on this, but countless other AMP workers or customers in the future. It will be a long time before police in FL once again try to use a sneak and peak warrant to videotape private massage sessions.

@RD Chances are the women involved didn’t have the ability or the means to hold out to the end, most probably had some legal aid attorney that had a few hundred other cases on his/her plate, and didn’t even have time to have a pre consult with their clients.

Robert Kraft has done more for charity than everyone on this board, their extended families and friends combined. He was attacked by a blue area police force, and it was his defense team that wiped out the charges for everybody. The idea someone is giving Robert Kraft shit on this fucking board proves what a p.o.s. they truly are.

@25: Agreed 100%. After being held in prison for a while with felony charges hanging over their heads, they were no doubt very willing to agree to a fine and some probation to make it go away. Sadly this is exactly the type of position that these police and prosecutors rely upon in order to get away with trampling Constitutional boundaries.

During the Kraft hearings, one prosecution attorney even muttered "asshole" when one of the defense attorneys was probing an officer's targeting behavior. This highlights the level of self-entitlement that these prosecutors felt in this situation. They are so unaccustomed to being challenged, even when they cross boundaries, that they blame the person who exposes the misbehavior rather than the cops who did the misbehaving.

If you run a business, be it a massage joint or a gas station, you have to be able to pay your own business expenses, including legal fees. If you won't pay your own business expenses, then you don't deserve to own your own business.

There is no such thing as a blue police force.

^Incorrect.

Rick, though i agree with much of what youve said in this particular thread… you mention “constitutional boundaries”…

You dont even support or believe in freedom of speech, association and religion. So im not sure what relevance constitutional boundaries has on anything. You dont even believe people should be allowed to openly solicit anyone in public, or private places.