It’s my understanding that Sterling had his conversations recorded because he was having memory problems and also wanted his words recorded for his memoirs.
I hears somewhere that this may be true, but I have not heard that from him or anyone with personal knowledge. I would treat that suggestion with suspicion. If he is recording all his communications, he would have to notify everyone that he talks to to get their consent, or he would be in violation of the law. It would be crazy for him to record himself and then utter these things, but who knows? He's 81.
If that is the case, then it presents an interesting ambiguity. I can record a private conversation with my wife (don't have a mistress) so I can remember what I said. That doesn't mean I chose to make the conversation public. The intent of these statutes would be to make revealing such a conversation illegal and inadmissible. However, I did not see anything in the statutes that specifically says that using a recording made knowingly but which is intended to be private is illegal, or that such a recording is inadmissible. I did not search other statutes or the case law, however. There may well be other statutes that make stolen documentation inadmissible. Stay tuned for further updates.