Search of Christian Ziegler’s cellphone was illegal, judge says

A Sarasota judge ruled Monday that police’s search of former Republican Party of Florida chairperson Christian Ziegler’s cellphone amid rape allegations violated the U.S. Constitution.

Judge Hunter Carroll ruled that three search warrants obtained by the Sarasota Police Department to look through Ziegler’s phone were “severely overbroad.” He noted that officers went through hundreds of thousands of photos and videos and thousands of Ziegler’s text messages to his wife, Bridget Ziegler.

The judge ordered law enforcement to destroy copies of most of the data seized.

Last October, a woman told Sarasota police officers that Christian Ziegler, then the chairperson of the state GOP, had sexually assaulted her. The woman had known the Zieglers for years and had had at least one threesome encounter with the couple, the investigation found.

Police opted against charging Ziegler with sexual battery after saying a video appeared to show consensual sex, but the department forwarded a video voyeurism investigation to the state attorney. The state attorney in March declined to file charges after the woman said it “was possible” she could have consented to the video being taken.

Carroll ruled the police department’s search while investigating the claims was unreasonable. He compared the cellphone search to searching someone’s home. Carroll said that the Fourth Amendment should have protected Christian Ziegler from the search of his cellphone. The judge wrote that cellphones can contain a person’s “entire life story.”

Carroll wrote that Ziegler wants to retain control of his information and personal property. But that will be difficult, because the information given to the public by the police department through public records requests.

Ziegler and the Sarasota Police Department did not respond to emailed requests for comment on Monday morning on Carroll’s ruling.

Carroll noted that the Zieglers are high-profile figures. Bridget Ziegler is a Sarasota County School Board member and co-founded the conservative education advocacy group Moms for Liberty. But that does not mean they have given up their constitutional rights, Carroll wrote.

“This ruling is long. But the short answer is this: Mr. Ziegler has the constitutional right to recover exclusive control over his personal property seized involuntary through unconstitutional warrants,” Carroll wrote.

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