Courts Reject Attempts to Suppress Evidence Obtained From Hard Drives

In both Boudakian v. Boudakian (NYLJ, December 26, 2008, at 21, col. 3 [Sup Ct, Queens County 2008]) and Moore v. Moore (NYLJ, August 14, 2008, at 26, col 1 [Sup Ct, New York County]) the plaintiffs attempted to suppress material found on the hard drive of the spouse’s laptop computer by expert Peter Theobald of KLG Computer Forensics. Both attempts to suppress relied on Penal Law Section 250.05 which prohibits “intercepting” electronic communications. In both cases, the court found that no interception had taken place since the communications were saved on the hard drives and had not been intercepted while in transit.