A judge has ruled the laptop of a defense attorney in the YSL RICO case can be searched after his client used it to get on Instagram and communicate with a Fulton County Sheriff's deputy.
On Friday, the judge made the ruling after attorney Eric Johnson was picking jurors for the YSL trial involving Young Thug in May and his client, defendant Christian Eppinger, got on his laptop and signed into Instagram. Deputies took photos of Eppinger using the laptop and violating the rules inside the courthouse.
Johnson's client used the laptop to contact Akeiba Koren Stanley, a former Fulton County sheriff's deputy who was in a relationship with Eppinger. Stanley was fired and was charged with reckless conduct, violation of oath of office, conspiracy to commit a felony, and hindering apprehension or punishment of a criminal due to the relationship.
A judge signed a warrant in May to have Johnson's laptop seized, but he and other defense attorneys fought against it. On Friday, the judge upheld the warrant.
"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," said attorney Denorris Heard, who argued Johnson's case at the hearing.
Litigator Allegra Lawrence Hardy, who will have one week to search the laptop, added, "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."
Due to the allegations of improper messages with the deputy, Eppinger's case had been severed from the other defendants and will now be tried separately.
