Cases brief on United States vs Ganias (2014)

The United States of America v. Ganias Stavros
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
The case was decided on the 17th of June, 2014. The defendant Ganias makes an appeal from the verdict that convicts him. This was due to the jury trial that had claims of tax evasion. Ganias confronts the conviction with consideration of his fourth amendment rights on which the state copied information from his computers hard drives and kept the files beyond the time allowed by the search warrant for more than two and a half years.
Facts
Ganias worked for the Internal Revenue Service for approximately fourteen years. In 1980, he began providing accounting and tax services to small businesses and individuals at Wallingford. By the year 1998, Ganias was hired by McCarthy and the Industrial Property Management and the American Boiler. The army had hired IPM to be providing security and maintenance at an unoccupied army facility in Stratford. In 2003, a confidential source gave out information to the Criminal Investigative Command that people associated with IPM were involved in improper activities, for instance, stealing of copper wire and related items from the army facility (Gajek, 2016). The army began an investigation with their computer specialists in collecting digital and electronic evidence. Records, materials, computer software and hardware, and financial data from IBM and American boiler were seized. However, the agents failed to confiscate Gania’s computers since the computer experts made similar copies of the three hard drives from Ganias computers.

As a repercussion, the specialists made copies of the three files on the three computers that included files beyond the range of the warrant. This included files that contained Gania’s private financial files. Towards the end of 2004, investigators discovered that there were irregularities with regards to the transactions that happened between American Boiler and IPM in the paper documents that were taken from Gania’s office.
Procedural history
On the indictment, the grand jury prosecuted McCarthy and Ganias for tax evasion and conspiracy. In 2010, Ganias made a motion to suppress the computer files that were subject to the appeal (Gajek, 2016). Thompson held a two-day hearing at the district court and denied the motion with an indication that a written decision was to follow. Later, the court made a filing of its written decision with explanations as to why it denied Gania’s motion for suppressing. In 2010, the case was transferred to Judge Ellen Burns for trial. In 2012, Judge Burns sentenced Gania to twenty months in prison but he was released pending an appeal. The case against the defendant was losing its validity slowly.
Conclusion
To sum up, the government violated Gania’s fourth amendment rights by indefinitely retaining and seizing the computer records for a long time. Gania’s records should have been concealed. The evidence of being suppressed is contrary to the majorities conclusion, for instance, it is of irreplaceable nature such as drugs or guns. Facts relevant to the issue on appeal were drawn from the testimony on Gania’s motion to suppress. All counts were later dismissed. Records reflected that Gania’s first name was Steve instead of Stavros. The presence of the internet and social networking dwarfed the previously assumed apprehension that the juror could have been exposed to a television program or newspaper article. The government conceded it required a legal search warrant in order to scrutiny the non-responsive computer files that were in its possession.

Reference
Gajek, K. (2016). Social Media as an important element of sports organization external communication. Quality in Sport, 2(1), 39-51.