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

A Sarasota judge ruled Monday that the police 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. Ziegler said the sex was consensual. 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 Sarasota state attorney’s office. 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 of the information given to the public by the police department through public records requests.

Matt Sarelson, an attorney for the Zieglers, praised the judge’s decision.

”These were three, overbroad, general warrants to obtain literally everything on Christian’s phone, which is tantamount to everything in this life,” Sarelson wrote in an email. “Our Constitution requires more nuance because broad general warrants are patently unlawful.” Sarelson noted that Ziegler was never arrested nor charged.

The Sarasota Police Department said in an email that it is aware of the ruling and is working with the city attorney’s office and the state attorney’s office to review the decision.

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.