Former councilman Kerry Kinard and his attorney have asked the judge to throw out computer evidence in relation to the sex-related chargers Kinard is facing in Bamberg County, Martha Rose Brown of The Times and Democrat writes. Council for Mr. Kinard, Bakari Sellers argued that all the computer evidence collected by law enforcement should be suppressed. Sellers is arguing that the evidence be suppressed because the evidence has yet to be available to him and his client to review before trial.

Kinard’s trial is set for July 12, and he faces charges of first-degree assault and battery, second-degree attempted criminal sexual conduct with a minor under 16, committing or attempting to commit a lewd act upon a child under 16, and two counts of criminal solicitation of a minor and dissemination of obscene material to a person under 18. Circuit Judge Clifton Newman heard arguments from Sellers and the Second Circuit Deputy Solicitor, David Miller. Miller informed the court that the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) is still analyzing some of the data extracted from electronic devices that were seized from Kinard’s father’s home. At the time Kinard was taken in to custody he was living with his father.

Judge Newman is quoted by Brown “I may not make a decision until the time of trial, who knows.” Currently, the SLED has approximately a terabyte of data that has been extracted from some of the seized devices. The is “an Android tablet, a Chromebook laptop, a Microsoft Surface tablet and two Apple iPhones [that] remain passcode protected and SLED analyst haven’t been able to access them” Brown writes. Miller told Sellers that if Mr. Kinard wanted to provide the proper passcodes for the devices that it would speed things up. Miller stated that the available computer evidence and timeline would be provided on June 11, 2021.

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Law enforcement agencies from all over the world recently reported on an enormous ongoing sting operation assembled with evidence gleaned from a messaging application the FBI claims to have been running all along. The app, called ANOM, was marketed as an encrypted chat application “designed by criminals for criminals” according to a recent CBS news report.

The operation, dubbed Trojan Shield, was led by the FBI but also involved Europol and other agencies in countries across around the globe. The ANOM app was distributed throughout criminal organizations for close to two years already installed on specially prepared devices that purposely excluded features like microphones and cameras. The lack of these features and the endorsement of some high profile criminal organizations added an air of security to the devices.

However, all of the messages sent using the ANOM application were subject to monitoring by law enforcement. As the application gained popularity among organized crime networks around the world digital evidence apparently started to pile up with reports of murder and drug shipments/manufacturing being discussed openly on the app. This week the operation came to a head with a surge of arrests in places such as Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Sweden and Belgium. U.S. officials have reported that over 500 individuals have been arrested along with the seizure of millions of dollars and more than 30 tons of drugs and over 50 illegal drug labs.

Email:    Phone: 703.359.0700
Digital Forensics/Cybersecurity/Information Technology
https://senseient.com/services/digital-forensics