“Furthermore, I am totally pixxed at the Seminole LE for not releasing the phone records. Really, really, really!!! That alone would set a lot of suspicions to rest, or confirm them.”
I don’t get it. I thought that the phone records, of the cell phones of HKS and KE would be the property of the company - Sprint, Verizon, whatever, regardless of where the cell phone customer was located when the calls were made. I think while the SPD doesn’t have to release the hotel phone records or whatever records they subpoenated, the original records are still owned by the parent cell company. I THINK?
Wouldn’t anyone outside the SPD still be able to get a court order for copies of those same records? I just don’t see how the original records can be passed over as unobtainable on the basis that they are “owned” by the SPD. It would seem the SPD can only own their COPIES of the original cell phone records. Am I missing some legal point?
Sorry if this has already been clarified elsewhere.
The only thing I can think of is that the phones records may be “private” until they become part of a police report—then they would be part of a “public” record. I think the Seminole PD operates differently from a regular police department because of it being tribal.
I can shed some light on the cell phone records policies of the major cell phone companies. I deal with their subpoena departments all of the time either with signed releases from customers or actual subpoenas.
Cell phone companies are VERY sensitive to subscriber privacy and those records belong to the consumer. If you have a legit signed court order or subpoena you can get records.
Had a Florida Police Agency or State Attorney gotten those records they could have been viewed after the case was closed with the Sunshine Law. However, as has been pointed out...
The Seminole Tribe doesn’t have to give anything to anybody and they are not going to. They want this to all go away and the sooner the better in their opinion.
You *could* subpoena the records directly from Verizon through a court order as a matter of the discovery process.
There are also many private investigators who get those records by paying an insider to give it to them. It happens all the time from what the P.I.'s tell me. There's also a service online that does it, too. It's pretty big business.