Defense fights Erie County Courthouse wiretapping case, says no 'expectation of privacy'

The Erie County Courthouse, the site of innumerable trials, is itself becoming a piece of evidence in a criminal case.

An ex-county employee is citing the public aspect of the building as she seeks the dismissal of charges that she illegally audiotaped her coworkers when she was employed at the Clerk of Courts office, which handles filings in criminal cases.

The defendant, Karla Jeffery, is arguing in a court motion that her fellow employees had no "expectation of privacy" in their conversations in the workplace because of the public nature of the Clerk of Courts office.

Jeffery is contending that she did not violate the state's wiretap law, which prohibits audiotaping a person without their consent. She said she was not recording private conversations and did not need the consent of her coworkers for the taping, which she is accusing of carrying out in October.

Jeffery's lawyer, Gene Placidi, is arguing in the motion that "conversations between employees and/or employees and the public are not private unless the specific employees make a concerted effort, like whispering, to keep the conversations private."

The motion describes the layout of the Clerk of Courts office, on the first floor of the courthouse, as evidence that workers had no expectation of privacy. The entrance to the office's employee-only area is private and "badge only," according to the motion, but the public does business at a front counter that a glass partition separates from the employee-only area behind it.

Based on the layout of the office, "none of the Clerk of Courts employees had an 'expectation of privacy' in their conversation with other employees and/or their conversations with the public," according to the motion. The motion states that the Erie County District Attorney's Office has no evidence that Jeffery violated the wiretap law.

Defense also wants recordings tossed as evidence

Placidi in the same motion asks for the suppression of the key evidence in the case — the recordings that Jeffery is accused of making.

Jeffery is charged with using a small hidden digital video recorder to take videos of her coworkers on Oct. 3, and she is accused of using a Samsung Galaxy smartphone to take a video of a coworker assisting a customer on Oct. 2, according the court records. The videos include recordings of sound.

Placidi is arguing that the prosecution cannot use the videos as evidence because detectives with the District Attorney's Office seized the recording device and Jeffery's phone without her consent and without search warrants, according to the motion.

The judge assigned the case, John J. Mead, scheduled a hearing for May 28 on the requests to dismiss the charges and suppress the evidence, according to an order filed earlier this month.

The District Attorney's Office at the hearing will get a chance to present witnesses and evidence to rebut the defense claims.

At Jeffery's preliminary hearing, in November, an assistant district attorney, Brendan Sala, said workers in the Clerk of Courts office have "a reasonable expectation of privacy." He said the conversations that Jeffery is accused of taping were limited to the employee-only workspace where the public is prohibited from entering.

Then-3rd Ward District Judge Tom Carney held all the charges for court at the preliminary hearing. The defense is now challenging those charges before Mead.

Jeffery sued in federal court before charges were filed

Jeffery, 60, is charged with the third-degree felonies of illegal interception of communications and criminal use of a communications facility and the first-degree misdemeanor of possession of an instrument of crime. She has pleaded not guilty and remains free on an unsecured bond of $50,000. The prosecution has not presented a motive in the case.

Jeffery, of Erie, resigned from her $37,713-a-year job in the Clerk of Courts office on Oct. 4, the day after detectives with the District Attorney's Office started investigating the wiretapping allegations. She was charged on Oct. 27.

Jeffery had worked at the courthouse since 2002 and worked as a senior criminal records clerk at the Clerk of Courts office since 2006.

The last years of Jeffery's tenure in the office came with tension.

In 2021, she unsuccessfully ran for the elected office of Erie County clerk of records, who oversees the Clerk of Courts office and the three other row offices at the courthouse, including the Recorder of Deeds. Jeffery lost in the Democratic primary to Aubrea Hagerty-Haynes, who had been her boss in the Clerk of Records office and is now the clerk of courts.

Jeffery sued Erie County, Hagerty-Haynes and David Bradford, who heads the Records of Deeds office, in Erie federal court in March 2023. The suit claims Jeffery was subjected to a hostile work environment and demoted in retaliation for running against Hagerty-Haynes.

The county failed in its first attempt to get the case dismissed, and it filed an answer to the suit on April 15. The answer refers to Jeffery's resignation from her job in the Clerk of Courts office. The resignation, according to the motion, means Jeffery's claims "are moot and cannot be maintained."

Ed Palattella at epalattella@timesnews.com. Follow him on X @ETNpalattella.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Privacy challenge arises in Erie County PA Courthouse wiretapping case