PAMELA HELD |
Pamela Held, alleges that the 41-year old officer took her iPhone after he arrested her, then "stole" her private nude photos and videos that she'd made for her boyfriend.
"It makes me sick," Held told The News, adding she plans to sue NYPD for invasion of privacy. The Internal Affairs department reportedly confirmed that it was investigating her complaint.
Held's problems with the NYPD began February 6 when five officers in a police van pulled over her car because her car didn't have an inspection sticker, according to The News.
Prescription drugs and marijuana were found in the car, so Held and her friend were taken into the precinct for questioning. Interrogated by police as to her whereabouts that evening, Held says she told them she was visiting a friend and could prove it with texts and handed her phone over to police.
She says she was tipped off something was up later when she noticed 20 of her private photos as well as five videos were sent to an unknown phone number. After consulting with an attorney, she hired a private investigator to figure out the owner of the mystery phone number, which led her to Christian.
In speaking to the New York tabloid, Held has said she's mostly concerned about what's been done with her private images. "Who knows what he's capable of?"
According to Held, the officers kept the phone for three hours, which is when she thinks her private images were lifted. "I knew they had my phone and I was bugging out," she also told the media.
In speaking to a New York newspaper, Christian denied taking the images, and even said that he doesn't work for the police precinct that he's currently employed with. He also claimed he's never met Held, and added the number that appeared in her outgoing calls is attached to a phone owned by his brother.
A 50 minute call placed by Held to Christian, with her private investigator listening on, revealed that Christian was "quite familiar with Held." (Held found her private investigator, unnamed in reports, through her attorney, Richard Soleymanzadeh.)
But whatever did happen that night with Held's phone, the issue for legal commentator Jonathan Turley is the insight the incident provides into police overreach. "Why would a team of five officers be patrolling for sticker violations?" he asked on his blog, JonathanTurley.org. "They weren't," he went on.
Instead, he questioned the very legitimacy of the police search of her car. And he pointed to Supreme Court rulings like Whren vs. United States from 1996, which said any traffic violations was a "legitimate legal basis for a stop." Such a ruling, he wrote, has left "all citizens subject to these stops and searches as part of an increasing array of expanded and potentially arbitrary police powers."
Both Held and her friend, unnamed in reports, have since seen the criminal cases against them over the drug possession charges adjourned.
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