Florida prosecutors have dropped two solicitation of prostitution charges against Robert Kraft, the billionaire owner of the New England Patriots, CNN reported on Thursday. Kraft had been accused of paying for sexual massages at the Orchids of Asia Day Spa in Jupiter, Florida last year, but the video that allegedly depicted the acts wasn’t allowed as evidence in court after his lawyers successfully argued that the state’s use of hidden cameras in their investigation violated Fourth Amendment protections.
“Without these videos, we cannot move forward with our prosecutions,” State Attorney Dave Aronberg wrote in court documents, according to CNN. “And thus, we are ethically compelled to drop the cases against all of the defendants.”
Last year Kraft pleaded not guilty to the charges but wrote in a statement, “I am truly sorry. I know I have hurt and disappointed my family, my close friends, my co-workers, our fans and many others who rightfully hold me to a higher standard.”
The Orchids prosecution is not over, though. Twenty-five people were originally charged in the prosecutors’ investigation of the spa, and Aronberg said on Thursday that two people still face felony charges. The cases against Hua Zhang, Lei Wang, and Shen Mingbi remain listed as open in Palm Beach County court records, as Reason pointed out on Friday, while solicitation cases against at least 13 other men charged with Kraft are listed as closed. (The state attorney’s office couldn’t immediately be reached for comment on the discrepancy in the number of open felony cases.) Zhang is the co-owner of Orchids of Asia, and Kraft allegedly patronized Wang and Mingbi; all three women have pleaded not guilty on all charges.
Florida police originally said they were investigating a human trafficking ring when they placed secret cameras at Orchids. As May Jeong wrote for Vanity Fair last year, that line was repeated in initial news coverage of the Kraft story but fell apart soon after. In April 2019, prosecutor Greg Kridos said, “There is no human trafficking that arises out of this investigation.”
“At the time I thought: They must have made a mistake,” Zhang told V.F. of the February 2019 police raid. “It’s so funny—they treat me as a treacherous criminal. I can’t believe what kind of system it is. Why do you make such a big move against a family woman?” While Florida authorities presented the idea that they were rescuing women from sex trafficking, the result was the continuing prosecution of them in a state where sex workers are pursued much more aggressively than johns.
Zhang was able to post bail and was placed under house arrest, while other women were transferred to ICE custody. As Jeong noted, after he was arrested, Kraft was free to leave Palm Beach to attend Barry Diller and Diane von Furstenberg’s pre-Oscar brunch in Beverly Hills and to watch Rafael Nadal win the French Open in Paris. While the legal case against Kraft has now ended, its contours had already been firmly established.
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