N.J. Judge Rules Laptop With Attorney-Client Messages Is Fair Game
A federal judge in Newark, N.J., has ruled that a laptop confiscated by police during an internal affairs investigation doesn’t need to be returned to the officer.
U.S. District Judge Stanley Chesler of the District of New Jersey rejected a request by Officer Anthony Ferraioli’s lawyer that Hackensack police return the machine, the New Jersey Law Journal reports.
The laptop is at the center of a complex case in which Ferraioli and another officer filed a civil rights suit claiming they were demoted because they voted against the police chief’s choice for union delegate.
Ferraioli’s laptop was confiscated nine days after he filed suit. Hackensack police allege someone using the computer posed as a police lieutenant on a NJ.com forum, the Law Journal reports.
However, Ferraioli’s lawyers were concerned that the confiscation was a pretext to gain access to months of attorney-client communications leading up to the civil rights filing.
But Chesler says the officer’s personal laptop wasn’t seized, it was surrendered.
