Accused Russian hacker's laptop was accessed without US search warrant, suppression motion says
A well-known criminal defense lawyer representing an accused Russian hacker in a high-profile federal case is seeking to have the contents of his client’s laptop suppressed as evidence.
That’s because thousands of files were accessed—and hundreds were modified—between the time Roman Seleznev was arrested by the U.S. Secret Service and when a search warrant was issued, says attorney John Henry Browne in a motion filed Thursday in the Seattle case.
This means, Browne says, that either United States officials accessed files and modified some before getting a search warrant, or that they failed to protect the laptop, allowing others to do so, reports the Associated Press.
“The government’s bad faith and corruption of evidence mandate suppression,” Browne wrote.
In addition to claimed pre-warrant changes made to the laptop’s contents, as determined by a forensic expert, Browne points to an affidavit supporting the warrant application. It said the defendant’s electronic devices had been kept “in a manner in which their contents are, to the extent material to the investigation, in substantially the same state” as they were when seized by the United States.
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