Lie about focus of administrative investigation did not prejudice defendant

An administrative investigation of polluting water quickly morphed into a criminal investigation, and investigators even lied about their focus. The fact he was lied to did not change the course of the investigation at all because the outcome would have been the same. United States v. Rosenblum, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 96607 (D. Minn. December 21, 2007):

Here, Defendants can point to no constitutional right that was prejudiced by MCES’s false statements regarding the nature of the water monitoring conducted in March 2005. This monitoring was authorized by search warrant and therefore the Defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights were in no way compromised. The information acquired by search warrant in this case is different from the information collected in Tweel where the Defendant consented to a search thereby prejudicing his right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. In this case, there is nothing the Defendants could have done (short of obstructing the investigation) to prevent the monitoring had they known of its true nature, whereas in Tweel, the defendant could have asserted his Fourth Amendment right not to consent to the search had he known the investigation was criminal in nature.

Moreover, unlike the defendant in Stringer, who could have asserted his Fifth Amendment right not to make the statement, there is no right the Defendants here could have exercised that would have changed the course of the investigation. It is true that had the Defendants known that the investigation was criminal in nature, they might have been able to insist on the issuance of a search warrant before allowing the monitoring otherwise used only for civil monitoring purposes, to be collected for criminal enforcement. However, the agents had already secured a search warrant and therefore nothing about the deception impacted the exercise of any constitutional right.