PHILADELPHIA – A federal court has thrown out the claims of a local attorney against both Amazon and the Jay-Z-founded entertainment company Roc Nation, over a supposed illegally recorded conversation in which the lawyer took his own client to task – with that same client being the judge presiding over rap music artist Meek Mill’s controversial criminal court case.
On June 12, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania Judge Gerald A. McHugh dismissed both the wiretap and replevin claims of attorney A. Charles Peruto Jr. at the summary judgment stage.
Peruto believed that the defendants violated both state and federal wiretap acts when it recorded him during the production of a documentary series about Meek Mill and his run-ins with the criminal justice system in Philadelphia, titled “#FreeMeek.”
At issue are critical comments Peruto made during his interview, at a time when he believed he was no longer being recorded. However, his microphone was in fact still on and the recorded comments were later leaked to the media and the public.
The comments were referring to Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas Judge Genece Brinkley, who has presided over Meek Mill’s criminal case for more than a decade and ruled to send him to prison back in 2017 for violating his probation.
When Brinkley’s decision led to widespread criticism, the judge hired Peruto to represent her.
On May 30, 2018, Peruto participated in interviews for the “#FreeMeek” documentary series and spoke of his belief that Meek Mill was not representative of the problems in the criminal justice system. After he believed both the cameras and audio were turned off, Peruto made the following comments:
“That was hard to do, because defending this judge is now becoming difficult – why doesn’t she just grant this f—ing thing? She looks f—ing awful,” Peruto said on the recording.
The conversation continued, with Peruto criticizing his client Brinkley and her handling of Meek Mill’s court case. Despite his assertions that he instructed the film crew to go “off the record” and the leaked comments had been edited in post-production, McHugh said the audio recording, which has since been authenticated by a pair of experts, did not show him make any such indication, nor did he have any reasonable expectation of privacy in that situation.
“Mr. Peruto spoke freely in front of a room full of individuals, some of whom he did not know, in the presence of recording equipment,” McHugh stated. “[He] knew the recording devices had just been recording, yet he began disparaging his client before he even had time to fully remove his microphone.”
“Mr. Peruto obviously did not intend for his disparaging statements to be shared widely, let alone become part of the #FreeMeek documentary series. Unfortunately for Mr. Peruto, his comments were leaked to the press along with portions of the recording,” McHugh added.
From there, Peruto commenced filing lawsuits under both state and federal wiretap laws to maintain the conversation was illegally-recorded, and for replevin to recover the tape of the conversation in question. The suits were later consolidated, however McHugh found no basis to either set of claims.
“Members of this court applying Pennsylvania law have considered a variety of digital property interests but have consistently found such interests unable to support a conversion claim. These decisions have noted the limitation the Superior Court identified and concluded that, because such digital property interests are both intangible, and not a form of intangible property typically merged with particular documents, they are not subject to conversion or replevin,” McHugh said as to the replevin claim.
McHugh specifically noted, however, that this ruling only address the current claims in question, and Peruto may choose to litigate further depending on the content of the finished documentary series.
Previously, Peruto attempted to seek an injunction preventing the release of the documentary in its entirety, which McHugh denied.
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania cases 2:18-cv-04468 & 2:18-cv-04818
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nick.malfitano@therecordinc.com