FBI Agents Seized Camera Card & Hard Drive First; But ‘Discovered’ Value as Evidence Last
By Suneel Chakravorty
Did you know that the two single most important pieces of evidence that were used to convict Keith Raniere – the camera card and the hard drive, the latter which supposedly contained the child porn pics of Cami- and the former which was used to prove he took the pictures – those same two items that were held for months by FBI agents – without being turned in (11 months for the camera card and 4.5 months for the hard drive), just happened to be the first two pieces of evidence seized by the FBI?
Think about that.
This wasn’t happenstance. It’s not like these devices were waiting just inside the front door at 8 Hale.
FBI agents raided the townhome at 8 Hale Drive on March 27, 2018, two days after Raniere was kidnapped in Mexico and deported to the USA to waiting FBI agents.
8 Hale Drive was known as Raniere’s Executive Library.
When they came to the townhome, the FBI agents did not start searching every square inch – starting from the door. Instead, they made a beeline to the second floor, went under a desk, and found the camera bag, containing the camera and camera card.
Then, like homing pigeons, went straight to the bookshelf, bypassing other devices they would later seize, to grab the Western Digital hard drive — that just ended up having the Cami photos.
In their beeline process, they passed other electronic items and hard drives, which they later collected before returning again underneath the desk, where they started, to collect a 14th item, a another [a LaCie] hard drive.
Odd that they would go under the desk and take only the camera card and not take the LaCie hard drive, then go right to the bookshelf and take the Western Digital hard drive [the two critical pieces first] then go about hither and yon seizing various items, then return to under the desk and take the LaCie.
How coincidental that they happened upon the critical evidence first, but evidence that was not really useful until just before the trial?
It is no coincidence more likely. This shows FBI agents knew what they were looking for in advance. Otherwise, how would you know to run upstairs and look under a desk?
The testimony of FBI Special Agent Christopher Mills, who was part of the raid of 8 Hale Drive, examined by AUSA Tanya Hajjar, on June 10, 2019, at the trial of Keith Raniere, is evidence that the hard drive and camera/card were found first.
Q Now, showing you Government Exhibit 502-A-32, can you describe what this photograph depicts?
A Sure. So the there’s a note there with the number one. So, number one represents evidence item number one. So, in this case, this photo was taken underneath the desk or table and was assigned number one based on being the first evidence item that was found….
Q I’m going to show you, Agent Mills, what’s marked as Government’s Exhibit 520 and 524. Have you seen these exhibits?
A Yes.
Q What are these?
A So, this camera here is the camera that was inside the bag of the item identified as item number one and then this is the card found inside of this camera.
Q And Government Exhibit 520 is the camera and 524 is the card inside that camera?
A Yes.
…
Q Can you describe what this photograph shows?
A Yes. So this is the still of the same office space as seen before and item number two, which is on top of the bookshelf here, is a gray or silver hard drive.
Q Is there — and this is directly to the left of a white board with a lot of equations on it?
A Yes. So the white board with the equations is to the right and the book shelf to the right with the hard drive to the left….
Q Can you describe what this photograph shows?
A Yes. So this is the still of the same office space as seen before and item number two, which is on top of the bookshelf here, is a gray or silver hard drive.
Q Is there — and this is directly to the left of a white board with a lot of equations on it?
A: Yes.
Q I show you what’s been marked for identification as Government Exhibit 502. Showing you what’s marked for identification as Government Exhibit 503. Do you recognize this exhibit?
A Yes.
Q What is it?
A This is a hard drive. The brand is, I believe, Western Digital.
Q Is there a serial number on that exhibit?
A Yes. It is WCAS81365334.
***
This shows that the agents had to navigate to a place where they had never been and went directly to the spot where their two best pieces of evidence which they were to ultimately use were found.
None of this might be significant or suspicious if they knew what that evidence was and, therefore, went there first.
But if we are to believe the FBI, they did not. They did not find out about the child porn being on the hard drive until 11 months after they seized it when the FBI “discovered” it by surprise.
On February 21, 2019, FBI Special Agent Michael Lever “found” images of Camila, allegedly under the age of 18, on the Western Digital hard drive that they unerringly went to, bypassing other hard drives, during the original raid and the same hard drive that case agents declined to turn over to Evidence Control for months – even though the FBI protocol manual requires them to turn it over in 10 days.
With this belated discovery, to quote Frank Parlato, a vocal critic of Raniere, “Now, the case was no longer a case of mainly white, affluent, middle-class, educated, intelligent adult victims, who in almost anybody’s book would never be classified as victims. Now the case was about the exploitation of a child, incapable of consent.”
Here’s the receipt of items seized, called an FD-597 form, showing the order of items comports with Mills’ sworn testimony:
Receipt of the items seized at 8 Hale Drive shows that the Canon EOS 20D camera was the first item seized, yet the camera card allegedly inside was held back for 11 months.
Coincidence or corruption?
The whole reason for the search and seizure was that 8 Hale Drive was allegedly a den of “sex trafficking” and likely had collateral.
The government would have likely known that Raniere didn’t take the nude photographs that were used as collateral, but that others took them, so why would they have gone for his camera and camera card first?
How many coincidences does it take to equal a fact (of tampering)?