FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — A judge has ruled that a defense attorney’s computer can be searched after his client used it to get on Instagram.
Attorney Eric Johnson was in the process of selecting jurors for the YSL trial involving superstar Young Thug in May when then-defendant Christian Eppinger got on the computer and illegally accessed Instagram. Deputies in the courtroom took photos of him violating the court’s rules.
It was later determined that Eppinger was talking to a Fulton County sheriff’s deputy on Instagram. She was later fired and arrested for the pair’s relationship.
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In May, a judge signed a warrant to have Johnson’s computer seized, but Johnson and other defense attorneys fought back.
Channel 2′s Tyisha Fernandes was at a hearing on Friday where the judge decided to uphold the warrant.
Johnson had attorney Denorris Heard argue his case.
“The reason for the search warrant is because they want to check the browser history they want to check the aspects of Mr. Johnson’s computer, now that in itself would violate the attorney-client privilege,” Heard said.
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All of the attorneys in the courtroom agreed with that, but the judge still ruled against it.
“The laptop will go from where it’s been safely stored to the forensic expert and then the expert will image it so that work can be done to sort through the privileged material to get to the stuff that’s in the warrant,” special master Allegra Lawrence Hardy said.
Hardy will have one week to sort through all the information on the computer.
Eppinger’s case has been severed from the other defendants in the YSL indictment. He will now be tried on his own.
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