T. Denny Sanford to appeal release of child pornography affidavits
A lawyer for billionaire banker T. Denny Sanford said Friday afternoon that an appeal will be filed with the Supreme Court to bar the release of affidavits that were used to authorize search warrants into a child pornography investigation.
The deadline to file an appeal is Monday. Following notice that Sanford would appeal, Judge James Power said the affidavits would remain under seal until Sanford had exhausted his appeal remedies.
Earlier in the day, Power had refused to release the affidavits to Sanford's legal team. Earlier this week, Stacy Hegge, one of Sanford’s lawyers, asked Power to make the affidavits available to Sanford while excluding the Argus Leader and ProPublica, which have been fighting in court for two years to release the documents.. Hegge argued that Sanford’s legal team couldn’t evaluate whether to appeal Power’s June 16 order unless it knew what information was contained in the affidavits.
More: Affidavits in T. Denny Sanford child pornography case should be made public, judge says
“While respecting the court’s decision on this issue, it remains an unsurmountable challenge as to making a fully informed decision regarding whether to appeal without an opportunity to first review the affidavit,” Hegge wrote.
The request was opposed by lawyers for the Argus Leader and ProPublica, as well as the South Dakota Attorney General’s Office, which oversaw the investigation into Sanford.
“There is simply no basis for providing Sanford the relief he seeks, or to permit some attempt to extend the time to appeal just days before the deadline,” wrote Jon Arneson and Jeff Beck, lawyers for the Argus Leader and ProPublica respectively.
Power agreed, in which he referred to the billionaire philanthropist as the “Implicated Individual.”
“First,” he wrote, “the Implicated Individual’s proposed remedy — that the court give access to the redacted documents to him but not to the media — is remarkably unfair. The media would also benefit from being able to review redacted versions of the affidavits when deciding whether it makes sense for them to incur the time and expense of resisting an appeal by the Implicated Individual. In addition, giving only the Implicated Individual access to the substantive contents of the affidavits would create an unlevel appellate playing field between the media and Implicated Individual. The Implicated Individual provides no persuasive authority or reason why the court should grant such an one-sided remedy.”
He also noted his decision ordering the affidavits to be released came on June 16 and that Sanford’s legal team didn’t make its latest argument until July 13.
More: Argus Leader, ProPublica argue for release of T. Denny Sanford affidavits: 'This absurdity must end'
Sanford, 86, has never been charged. In prior court filings, his lawyers have argued that his accounts were hacked. A forensic audit of his accounts showed that a specific person had hacked his email, according to one of those legal filings.
The investigation started with a search warrant in December, 2019. Four additional warrants were issued in March of 2020 into Sanford’s email and cellphone accounts.
The Argus Leader and ProPublica successfully won the release of the inventory of those search warrants, which under state law are public. But the underlying affidavit, which lays out the reasons for granting a search warrant, has remained sealed. South Dakota law allows affidavits to remain sealed while in an investigation is under way.
In May, the Attorney General’s Office announced the investigation into Sanford was over and that no chargeable offenses were found. That prompted the media organizations to file motions for the release of any affidavits related to the five search warrants, which Power granted on June 16.
It's unclear if Sanford is still under investigation in other states or by the federal government.
This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: T. Denny Sanford won't get porn affidavits before Argus Leader
