Judge Tosses Evidence Against Wall Street Exec

The government was “grossly negligent” in conducting broad searches of a Wall Street executive’s home and business, a judge has ruled. The evidence procured from those searches will now be tossed out of a criminal case. Judge Alison J. Nathan is overseeing a suit against financier Benjamin Wey, who was arrested in 2015 on conspiracy, wire fraud, and securities fraud charges. Nathan said the government made “indiscriminate physical searches and seizures” and later mined the materials for evidence. “This conduct reflects, at least, grossly negligent or reckless disregard of the strictures of the Fourth Amendment,” which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures, “and that is sufficient to infer a lack of good faith,” she said. “In the court’s view, these are precisely the sort of circumstances, rare or not, that call for blanket suppression.”