Evidence suppressed in grand larceny case

A state Supreme Court justice in New York City has suppressed evidence in a grand larceny case because a search warrant was not executed within the required 10-day period.

Defendant Lawrence Tonner was indicted for third-degree grand larceny. According to an affidavit filed in support of a search warrant in the case, Tonner worked for Shamco Management Co. as a leasing agent from July 28, 2020 to March 12, 2021.

Tonner was responsible for collecting security deposits and first-month lease payments from Shamco property tenants and then sending the payments to Shamco’s headquarters.

Beginning in the fall of 2020, Shamco officials believed that Tonner had collected more than $20,000 in payments from tenants without sending the money to Shamco.

The company reported this to police on March 11, 2021, and Tonner resigned the next day.

According to the decision, police claim that on April 7, 2021, Tonner sent an email from his Google email account to a Shamco employee “that threatened to report Shamco to various regulatory agencies for improper business practices if Shamco continued to participate in the investigation and prosecution of this case.”

On April 21, 2021, Tonner surrendered to police and was arrested. On May 20, 2021, a judge issued a search warrant that authorized the search and seizure of Tonner’s Google email account.

“The issuing judge found reasonable and probable cause to believe that the email account would contain evidence of grand larceny in the third degree and attempted coercion in the third degree,” according to the decision.

According to the prosecutor, the search warrant was executed on June 22, 2021.

On Nov. 29, 2021, Tonner’s lawyer filed a motion to cancel the search warrant and suppress all evidence obtained as a result of it because it was not executed in the proper timeframe. The prosecutor conceded that the search warrant was not “timely executed.”

“A search warrant must be executed not more than 10 days after the date it is issued … If execution occurs after 10 days, the property recovered must be suppressed,” Justice April A. Newbauer wrote.

“Given this ruling, the People may not introduce any evidence or information acquired through the execution of the search warrant at trial. Additionally, the People may not subject the information recovered from the warrant to subsequent searches based on new information and theories developed about the case,” she wrote.

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